


Path of the Infinite

by shadow_djinni



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And Ignoring The Sequel, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Fantasy Politics, Fantasy Religion, Horror, M/M, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Polyamory, Queer Characters, Reincarnation, Slow Burn, extensive worldbuilding, post-BOTW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:13:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 90,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_djinni/pseuds/shadow_djinni
Summary: When an ancient prophecy is unearthed in a ruin below the Temple of Time, Princess Zelda— the granddaughter of the woman who fought Calamity to a standstill— and Link, a young farmer from Akkala, must race to find the resting places of three sacred flames before Calamity breaks its seal once more. They find instead an unlikely ally: Ganondorf, the young king of the Gerudo, who dreams of fire and whose fate is bound to their own. The forces of gods and demons alike stand against them, and if the three are to stand a chance of saving Hyrule, they will need to walk the line between following their destiny and being consumed by it.
Relationships: Ganondorf/Link (Legend of Zelda), Ganondorf/Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Ganondorf/Zelda (Legend of Zelda), Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 128





	1. Prologue: The Flame of Farore

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is....a bit of a homecoming for me. I _used_ to be in the Zelda fandom, back in the early '10s when I first got into fandom. There's no evidence of it, unfortunately--those old fics existed only on my ffnet account, and were deleted in...'16, maybe earlier (and for good reason, they were terrible). There are some fandoms you never grow out of, though, and I'm really glad to be coming back.  
> Enjoy!

_In Faron’s misty forests deep_

_From whence the springs of courage seep,_

_There doth the Flame of Farore sleep._

* * *

“Can you get the door now?” Zelda asked, hefting her torch as high as she could.

Link grunted in response, and she watched his shoulders strain as he braced more firmly against the door and pushed again. She sighed, adjusting her grip and moving to try and cast a little more light on the matter. 

Fully half the doors in the Temple of Farore’s Flame had been like this— the ancient Sheikah technology that was supposed to keep it operational seemed to have met its match in the pervasive damp of the Faronese jungle. It had been almost unbelievable at first; that the same mechanisms that withstood incredible cold and equally punishing heat— that could be buried underground for millennia and still function when unearthed— would succumb to a little water, but the deeper they’d pressed into the temple, the fewer doors would respond to the Slate on Link’s hip.

“Do you want me to give you a hand?” she asked, edging a little closer.

Link paused in his pushing, glancing up at her through his shaggy bangs, his fair hair darkened with sweat and humidity. “It’s fine,” he said, then paused and shoved again. “I think— give me another minute, it moved on the last one.”

Zelda retreated a pace, adjusting her grip on the torch again. The wood under her palm felt slick, and she eyed the guttering flame. There was no telling, if it went out, if they’d be able to light it again.

Link growled and heaved, and the door shuddered, then groaned and began to slide back along its track into the wall as whatever debris had blocked its path dislodged itself. It vanished almost seamlessly into the frame, only slightly off-kilter from the shoving, and Link sighed and slumped against the wall. His chest heaved with each breath.

“Are you alright?” Zelda asked. She took a step towards him, wincing at the way her leather boots creaked with damp.

“Fine,” Link huffed, then straightened. “Could have been worse. At least we didn’t have to blow _that_ one up.”

“True,” Zelda said, biting back a grin.

She paused on the threshold, taking a moment to study the door’s construction as Link brushed past her into the room beyond. If they’d had more time she’d have lingered to sketch it in her field journal and make notes on it, but as it was— well, they had a more important task at hand, and as far as she could tell it was virtually the same as every other door in the temple had been: smooth, rounded, moving along invisible tracks in the floor and top of the frame and powered by some hidden mechanism. Some part of her yearned for the time and tools to deconstruct it and see how it worked.

The rest propelled her over the threshold and into the room beyond, the Chamber of Farore’s Flame, if she’d translated the map they had downloaded into the Slate in the first hall of the temple accurately. She tilted her head back, gazing up and up to where the vaulted ceiling was all but lost in darkness, and stifled a gasp.

Every inch of the walls were covered in carvings. Or, at least, they should have been— water sluiced down them in places, wearing old tracks in the bas-relief and erasing the details. Other stretches of the walls were draped in moss and lichen, vibrant green and orange splashes across the pale, smooth stone. She tore her gaze away, scanning the room a moment, only to find them drawn to the low brazier running the length of the far wall, and to the mural of the Triforce over it. A second symbol rested in the empty center space— Farore’s symbol, a full moon cupped within a half-moon within a crescent, dappled over with verdant mosses. The patterns around it seemed abstracted until Zelda’s eyes caught on the shape of a face, half obscured by a fall of crimson lichen, and the swirling forms resolved themselves into the shapes of three women, each touching one piece of the Triforce. Their eyes were inlaid with gemstones, ruby and sapphire and emerald, and Zelda whistled low under her breath.

“This place must have been incredible when it was new,” she said softly.

Link only hummed in response, and she let her eyes drop from the mural to him, where he knelt in front of the brazier, careful to keep his knees out of the sheet of water covering the floor. He held the Slate out in front of him, running it over the mossy face of it, and when she moved around to the side his scowl was obvious.

“It’s not registering anything to dock with,” he said, and looked up at her. “There’s nothing in this room that registers at all.”

“That’s...odd,” she said. Even the doors that refused to operate had panels in the wall beside them for the Slate.

“Yeah,” Link said. He stood, wincing slightly, and Zelda’s eyes dropped to the ginger way he held his right leg— where the gatekeeper had struck him in the previous room. “So how do you propose we light it?”

Zelda hummed and stepped back, looking over the brazier again, and then back up to the murals on the wall. “Well...somehow I doubt a _mortal_ flame would be suited to light a _sacred_ one,” she said thoughtfully, hefting her torch again. “But if the _Slate_ doesn’t register…”

“No fuel in the brazier either,” Link said, and shook his head.

Zelda stepped back again, turning slowly to study the carvings. The water-worn mural of the Sacred Flame on the wall to the right of the brazier caught her eye immediately, but she turned away from it— _later_ , she reminded herself, she could study it _later_. The left wall was more damaged, and mostly covered in moss, rendering the carvings indistinguishable from the wall itself, and she turned further, facing the door they had entered through. The lintel was covered in abstract patterns, but the space above it was muraled with the familiar motif of a youth with his sword held over his head, as if to cleave the skull of an absent foe.

“—That’s it!” she said, and turned back to Link, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet. “The carving over the door— the one of the First Hero. It’s been theorized that _particular_ stance, the Hero with the Sword upraised to the heavens like a ray of light, is meant to evoke the blessings of Hylia—” her grandmother, who had fought Calamity to a standstill for a century, had been the one to propose that theory— “so I think that perhaps if you emulate that pose yourself it might provoke a response.”

One of Link’s heavy golden brows arched skeptically. “...Not gonna lie, I think that’s one of your _crazier_ theories,” he said, and Zelda’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. “...But it’s also not like we really have any other options, so I guess it’s worth a shot.”

Zelda shot him a dirty look, but she took a few steps back and to the side anyway— if something _did_ happen, she didn’t particularly want to be in close proximity, and even if nothing happened it wouldn’t _hurt_ to have given Link space.

Link reached up and back, unsheathing the Sword that Seals the Darkness from its scabbard at his back. The naked blade glimmered in the light, reflecting and refracting them across its edge as he raised it overhead as if to cleave the skull of an absent foe. Zelda found her eyes drawn upwards, from the bunch of his tunic where his upraised shoulders pressed it against his neck, up the length of one corded arm to his gauntleted wrist, and further up, all the way to the point of the sword.

For a moment, nothing happened. Zelda bit her lip, nearly called out to him to lower the sword and not worry about it, and perhaps they could look the room over for a hidden place to use the Slate— 

Something on the front of the brazier lit up blue. A crest, water-worn and hardly visible under a coating of teal lichens and dirt, which burned away even as she watched to reveal wide stylized wings, spread like the wings beneath the royal family’s coat of arms. Like the ones on the Sword's hilt.

The unfamiliar pattern at the center of the Triforce on the wall above began to glow a brilliant green, the mosses covering it falling away, and in an instant a flame leapt from the brazier. It, too, was emerald, burning without fuel or heat, though Link stumbled away from it regardless, lowering the Sword to shield his face from its light.

“Now?” Link asked, glancing back over his shoulder at her, and Zelda nodded.

Link stepped forward and thrust the blade into the heart of the emerald flame up to its hilt. Zelda cried out in shock, but he ignored her, holding it steady with both hands. She watched his shoulders tense, the muscles in his arms locking in place like he held the sword against some great force, his whole frame shuddering as if blows rained against the blade in his hands.

And then the Sword itself flared with light, drowning out the green flame and the rest of the room, and when Zelda’s vision cleared the flame was gone as if it had never been. The air rang strangely, like a thousand bells had been struck and the echoes left to fade.

The Sword in Link’s hands, lowered from its position in front of him nearly to parade rest, was glowing. The edge shone a faint, luminescent blue, which faded away to its normal sheen as Zelda watched, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that _something_ about it had changed.

“...Well, then,” Link said.

“...Agreed,” Zelda said, and padded over to join him, her boots splashing in the pool. 

She reached out, pausing a few inches above the blade, tilting her head to study it more closely. With the glow faded, there was no obvious difference to the Sword itself— no, not quite. The yellow gem set into the guard was now emerald green. The air under her palm shivered with energy, a rhythmic pulsing almost like a heartbeat. She looked up and met Link’s eyes, and the expression he wore was as unsettled as she felt.

“...I suppose we can worry about it later,” she said. She hefted her torch again, then pointed it towards the flame mural. “I wanted to get a look at that before we leave— there’s an inscription below the Flame, and I’d like to try my hand at a field translation.”

Link nodded, and she stepped back as he twirled the Sword as if testing its balance before sheathing it again at his back. The violet wings on the guard shimmered, and Zelda’s eyes were once again drawn to the gem set between them before she could look away. She offered Link the torch, which he took, and pulled her field journal from its pouch at her waist, then turned to the mural of the Sacred Flame.

The carvings began at roughly the height of her chest— a rounded base, flowing up in smooth, stylized curves. The left side was partially worn away, the edges faded where at some point a stream of water had flowed over it, but most of the rest of the mural was clear, as was the crest in the center of the mural. She recognized Din’s symbol immediately: three curved lines, the lowermost beginning and uppermost terminating in circles. Her gaze slid lower to the inscription below the flame, where Ancient Sheikah lettering poked through crumbled yellow lichens, and she crouched and brushed them aside, then opened her field journal and pulled her charcoal stick from its holster on the side, carefully copying them down.

“Can you read it?” Link asked from behind her. He shifted the torch a little higher, and Zelda frowned and brushed away another clump of lichen.

“It’s very worn,” she said. “The first words of each of these lines are too damaged to be legible, but...I _believe_ this is the same inscription as the one below the Temple of Time…”

Her grip tightened momentarily on her charcoal stick, and she hastily relaxed her hand to keep from crumbling it. She’d been on that expedition, three years prior— the one that had discovered a _second_ temple beneath the foundations of the abandoned Temple of Time on the Great Plateau. The one that had found an enormous, and badly defaced, mural describing an ancient battle with the Calamity on a crumbling wall, centered around a stylized Triforce— the most damaged section of all. Only the inscription on the Triforce of Courage had been clear, and a few lines of a poem at the base of the mural.

_Calamity waxes, Calamity wanes,_ _  
_ _The Sealing Sword holds tides the same;_   
_When light within grows dim and weak_ _  
The Goddess-Fires thou shall seek—_

She shook her head, snapping herself out of it. “Lost my trail of thought a moment. Sorry, Link.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “Is there enough there _to_ read?”

“Yes,” Zelda said, hastily transcribing the final line into her journal. It always took her a minute to decipher Ancient Sheikah, though she’d been learning to read the language since she was a young girl, _particularly_ poetry like this piece. “It’s a rhyming triplet, like the one that guided us here in the first place. _...Lies within the land…_ the verb on the second line is gone, and I can’t get the lichen off the last few words, but it’s something about a _prince_ … _‘Where Din’s Flame sleeps beneath the sand.’_ At least, I _think_ that’s what the final line says…”

“So...the Gerudo Desert,” Link said.

“I think so,” Zelda said, biting back a grimace.

The Gerudo often did not appreciate the incursion of Hylian royalty on their territory, and her father had allowed the relationship to disintegrate when he took the throne after her mother’s passing. It wouldn’t be _nearly_ so simple to gain passage into the desert as it had been to enter the Faronese jungle— though the territory was _officially_ controlled by the Faron Confederation, the union of a number of isolated villages who had refused to rejoin the kingdom of Hyrule during reunification, their borders were notoriously lax and she and Link had slipped past without so much as a question of identity. Odds were slim they would be able to do the same with the desert, and Zelda doubted her favorite false identity— Hilda, the apprentice of a Hyrulean archaeologist— would pass muster.

“I will need to speak with my father,” Zelda said finally, brushing scraps of lichen from her trousers as she straightened. “We’ll need the permission of the Gerudo chief if we’re to go together, and—”

“Going separately isn’t an option,” Link said, shaking his head hard enough that his shaggy blond hair obscured his face a moment. “There’s no way I would have made it here without you.”

Zelda felt heat rush to her face, and she looked away, pretending to study the carvings again to hide her blush.

“We’ll contact my father,” she said again. “You don’t get to have _that_ adventure all to yourself.”

The sound Link made in response was nearly indescribable, and Zelda smiled privately and stepped past him, studying the left wall of the temple.

“Now, come help me look,” she commanded. “All my research says temples often have concealed passages from the innermost sanctum to an exit, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t care to go out the way we came in and risk another encounter with those rotting bokoblins.”

“No, _thank_ you,” Link bit back, and a moment later he was at her side again, hoisting his torch as high as he could to cast more light on the wall.


	2. Chapter 1: The Desert Prince

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Thanks for the warm welcome, folks--it's really nice to be back!
> 
> Just to let you all know in advance, at this point (4/6/20) I'm working off a backlogged arc--five chapters, each of them clocking in around or over 7k--and I'm planning on posting them every 2-3 weeks, depending on how quickly I can get the next arc written up. I'm posting the first of those chapters _now_ because...well, I feel a little odd giving you guys just the prologue and then vanishing off the face of the earth for three weeks.  
>  _Anyway_.......enjoy!

The air was bitterly cold when Zelda woke, and the light that filtered through the shutters was a sullen, pre-dawn grey that hardly lit the little room in the inn at the Kara Kara Oasis. She reluctantly pulled back her blankets, hissing as the chill struck her in the bones, but stood anyway. Rarely had she been so grateful to have a rug underfoot as she was now, even as she cast about for her clothing.

At least, she thought, spotting the heap of magenta and cream fabric poking out from under her pack, she and Link had thought ahead and purchased kurta, sirwal, and scarves for veils the night before. She dressed hastily, pulling the drawstring on the sirwal closed at her waist and pulling the kurta on over her head, then draped her veil over her head, leaving it open about the neck so she could pull it up as needed. The clothing was less buffer from the cool air than she preferred, but she’d want her cloak anyway— desert nights were frigid, and wouldn’t warm up until the sun was over the horizon— but  _ after _ the heat of the day set in they’d be grateful for the finely woven linen and loose, flowing layers. And, at any rate, Link wouldn’t be allowed to enter Gerudo Town without them. It had been forbidden for men of any race to enter, and had been so for as long as Hylians had kept written records, which meant that if she wanted him to accompany her into Gerudo Town, he would need to pass as a woman.

She slid her feet into her soft-soled boots, then fastened her belt at her waist, wincing as paper crinkled inside her journal pouch. It wasn’t the  _ journal _ that crinkled, of course— rather, the flimsy paper employed by the royal messenger pigeon system, from her father’s numerous messages. He’d sent nearly a dozen of them in the two weeks since she and Link had located the Temple of Farore.

Or, rather, since they’d been  _ caught _ leaving the Faron Confederation.

Which had caused a political uproar the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Faronese declined to rejoin Hyrule in her grandmother’s day, and which had ended in the Council of Faron declaring that if she ever set foot on their territory again, they would consider it an act of of war by the Hylian crown. Needless to say, her father had been furious. His first few letters had demanded she return to the palace immediately, but when she and Link reached the village of Katsuto, on the banks of the River Hylia, his messages had changed.

While she and Link had been deep in the Faronese wilderness, the chieftain of the Gerudo had been murdered.

According to her father’s letters, the chieftain had encountered outriders of the Yiga Clan— emerging from some hidden stronghold after a century of silence— and she’d fallen in combat in defense of her people. Her heir had purportedly taken the throne by the time Link and Zelda reached the Gerudo-held Koukot stable at the mouth of the canyon, and her father  _ demanded _ she either seek an audience with the new chieftain to ensure the treaties were kept, or return home  _ immediately _ .

And, well, any option looked more pleasant than returning to Hyrule Castle alone to face her father’s wrath. 

For all his demands he’d been rather short on letting her know what to anticipate with the new chieftain, though. Zelda  _ knew _ they’d met once as children; that is, she had vague memories of a young girl with dark skin and fiery hair playing with her in the gardens of Hyrule Castle, and court records showed that the Gerudo chieftain, her wife, and her daughter had paid a diplomatic visit to the Castle when she was six. The girl’s name, she recalled, had been Dragmire— she remembered it  _ solely _ because it had been a strange name for a girl, and because Dragmire had been so offended by her comment on it. She remembered almost nothing else, and certainly she would have changed a good deal from childhood, but there was precious little information to be had.

She hefted her pack onto her back and slipped out into the hall on silent feet, making her way to Link’s room a few doors down, and rapped lightly on the doorframe. It was earlier than he liked to be up, especially with the length of their trek the previous day, but only a fool risked desert crossing in the full heat of the day. Zelda didn’t fancy herself a fool, and never had— else she’d have slept another hour or three.

Link’s room stayed silent, though, and she frowned and knocked again. And then a third time, when he still failed to rouse.

Fabric rustled at the fourth knock, and then there was a  _ thump _ , like something of Link’s mass falling out of bed onto the floor. Further rustling. A second thump, this one almost hollow-sounding, like a fist on wood, and then the door creaked inward and Link peered blearily out at her.

“...’S the middle of the night, Zelda,” he groused.

“No, it’s an hour before dawn,” Zelda replied, and reached out to straighten his scarf, arranging his veil for him. “We have to walk, remember? The sand seal depot was out of seals trained for Hylian riders, and I don’t know about you, but I would prefer not to walk in the heat.”

Not that she considered that a great pity, after all. The beasts were bigger than a horse with tusks like daggers, and ‘seal surfing’ seemed a dubious mode of transportation at best. The crossing from the oasis to Gerudo Town would take longer on foot than by seal, but that was a sacrifice she was more than willing to make.

Link sighed. “...Yeah, I’d rather not,” he said. “Faron was bad enough.”

“At least it’s a dry heat this time,” Zelda said, trying for sympathetic. “Now put that veil up, get your pack, and let’s go.”

“Still,” Link said. 

He pulled his veil up over his nose and affixed it in place regardless, then slung his pack up onto his shoulder and fell in behind her. Even in the dim pre-dawn light, camp- and cook-fires and low, colorful tents dotted the sand and exposed stone around the central pool. A few were occupied by clusters of Gerudo, either breakfasting or setting up their market stalls, but the majority were occupied by Hylian or Rito traders— though Zelda caught a glimpse of a Goron on the far side of the oasis, deep in conversation with a Gerudo who stood nearly as tall as he, before she and Link turned towards the desert and the distant lights of Gerudo Town. Link waved at someone, and when Zelda cast a sidelong glance in the direction he’d waved, several vai around a cook-fire were waving back.

“Friends of yours?” she asked.

Link shrugged. “I showed them a rice ball recipe,” he said. “We chatted.”

“Did you hear any interesting gossip?”

“I asked about weird ruins in the desert, but none of them had heard anything unusual.”

“So what’s ‘usual’, then?”

Link shrugged again, tugging his travelling cloak more tightly around him. “Ghost fires in buildings, voices in sandstorms. Sounds more like poes than temples with sacred flames.”

“Ah,” Zelda said. “Well, that’s a disappointment. Hopefully you can get out to check with the Gerudo chapter of the archaeologists’ guild. They may know something the common people don’t.” She fell silent a moment as they passed the last row of tents to the west, the open desert spreading out before them. “And...you didn’t happen to hear anything about Chief Dragmire, did you?”

“Is His Majesty still pressuring you to deal with that treaty?”

“He wants extensions for Hylian merchants to enter Gerudo Town itself.  _ Male _ merchants,” she added, before Link could say anything.

Link shook his head. “From what the merchants I spoke with last night said, Dragmire won’t spring for it. Apparently she’s doubled the watch, and Hylian men aren’t allowed within a league of the city walls.”

Zelda winced. “And I’d hoped I could get her permission for you to traverse the city without being veiled.”

“It’s alright,” Link said. “I don’t mind. It’s keeping the dust out of my mouth, at least.”

_ That _ was certainly true, Zelda reflected. Between her veil shielding her nose and mouth from the sand and dust, which every gust of wind whipped airborne, and the broad hood of her travelling cloak, she was well-protected from the elements. 

The sky had lightened, she noticed. The grey finally touched the western horizon, streaks of yellow creeping around to the south as the first, faint suggestion of their shadows stretched itself across the dusty path ahead of them. The sunrise, when it came, would be  _ spectacular _ , of that she was sure. She could only hope they made Gerudo Town before it came, so she could appreciate it fully rather than catching glimpses over her shoulder.

The slow sunrise threw the distant walls of Gerudo Town into relief, deepening the gate in the center of the eastern wall into shadow. It was likely still closed at this hour— the East Gate, according to the Gerudo Zelda had spoken with the night before, closed at twilight to protect the town from marauders, while the south gate was manned even in the dark of the night to grant access to travellers seeking refuge. The vai said the East Gate opened at dawn, or shortly before, but also that early travellers had been more harshly vetted since the old chieftain’s death.

The path wound up towards the walls, which soared ever higher, and the sun had just kissed the horizon as Link and Zelda reached the wide, dark wooden doors at the eastern gate. Doors which were still shut, she noted, with some measure of disappointment.

“...Well?” Link asked. 

He’d softened his voice, already playing the part of a woman even though Zelda doubted there were any Gerudo present yet to hear him. Or even that they’d call him out as being in disguise if he spoke with his normal voice— every Gerudo that Zelda had ever spoken to had possessed a deeper voice than the average Hylian woman.

Zelda hesitated a moment, then shrugged herself. “Now...I suppose we knock, and hope there are guards to hear it. I would prefer  _ not _ to travel to the southern gate, if it can be helped.”

Link nodded, reaching up to fasten his veil a little more securely, and Zelda turned back towards the gate. She strode forward, pausing before it to steel herself a moment, then rapped on the dark wood with her knuckles.

Silence.

She’d just raised her hand to knock again when the gate shifted outwards, though no gap opened between the doors.

“Who goes there?” a voice asked. Close, but muffled— the speaker must have been just on the other side of the gate.

“Princess Zelda Nohansen Bosphoramus, of Hyrule,” Zelda answered, raising her voice a little so it would carry more clearly. “And my guard and escort, Link.”

There was a moment of quiet, and then the right-hand door of the gate opened, and Zelda found herself nose to breastplate with a guard. She sprang back, face heating as she took in the vai’s impressive height, her broad shoulders, the red-enameled gleam of her armor in the dawn light. And then her eyes tracked up further, to the glitter of dark eyes and the honed, shining point of the spear in the guard’s right hand. The guard looked her over a moment, then cast her gaze to Link, who had stepped forward to stand directly behind Zelda. He tensed under her gaze, and she felt him shift slightly— she reached back and caught his wrist, stilling him before he could reach for a weapon. Then she reached up and pulled her veil down, letting the guard see her face clearly.

“...Well, I suppose you must be,” the guard said. “The captain of the guard gave us orders to keep watch for your arrival...but I’d heard your escort was a  _ voe _ .”

“Only a rumor,” Link said behind her, his tone jarringly calm. “I’m as much a woman as you are.”

Zelda froze, her words caught in her throat— surely the guard would see?

The guard laughed instead, throwing her head back. “Oh, Hylians,” she said. “Come with me, I’ll escort you to the palace.”

She turned, then, and motioned them after her through the gate, into the wide, empty thoroughfares of Gerudo Town. A few torches still burned in sconces on the walls, dim and flickering after a night alight, and every door onto the main plaza was still shut. The scent of baking bread wafted through the air, though, and an unfamiliar bitter-roasted scent came with it as they passed a door marked with a stylized drawing of a cup. Across the plaza, a Gerudo vai emerged from a doorway to unfurl the sunshade in front of the building, pausing to watch the three of them as they passed. The palace waited at the end of the plaza, a soaring sandstone edifice with towers on either end, overtopped with a massive stone pillar from which water poured. The mist coming off the falls was a cool kiss in the slow-warming morning air.

A guard in blue enamel waited for them at the foot of the palace steps, and the guard who had met them at the gate exchanged a few hurried words in Gerudo with her, then stepped back to Link and Zelda.

“Your Highness, this is Aveil,” the gate guard said, extending a hand towards the guard in blue, who nodded a greeting. “I’m needed at my post, but she’ll take you where you need to go from here.”

“Thank you,” Zelda said, nodding politely. The gate guard winked at her in reply, then slipped past while Zelda gaped at her in shock, the heat rising in her cheeks again.

“Your Highness?” the guard in blue—  _ Aveil _ , Zelda reminded herself— said, drawing her attention. “If you and your guard will follow me, I’ll escort you to the guest quarters.”

Zelda frowned, her stomach turning over uncertainly. “I was under the impression that I would be expected for a meeting with the chieftain as soon as possible?” she said.

“Chief Dragmire’s orders state that your meeting isn’t scheduled until midmorning,” Aveil replied.

_ That _ , Zelda supposed, she understood. A chieftain would have more duties than she did as a princess— of course Dragmire wouldn’t have time in her schedule to meet until then. And a few hours between now and their meeting would give her time to prepare for it. She nodded in response.

“Very well, then,” she said. “Please, lead the way.”

Aveil dipped her head in response and turned smartly on her heel, leading the way into the palace. She didn’t wait, or shorten her strides to let them keep pace, and Zelda nearly had to jog to keep up with the vai’s lengthy stride. Link caught up to her a pace later, sticking close to her side, and something about his gate spoke of nerves to her as they were led deeper in. Through the atrium, down a hall to the left, then up a flight of stairs— and up, and up, ascending into one of the bell-shaped towers Zelda had noticed on their arrival.

Aveil stopped outside a door on the second landing, unlatching it and pushing the door open. “Your rooms will be here for the duration of your stay, Your Highness,” she said, gesturing into the room. “One of the palace guard will be here to retrieve you for your meeting at the second temple bell.”

“Thank you,” Zelda said, inclining her head politely.

Aveil nodded in response, but said nothing, turning and heading back down the staircase. Zelda paused in the doorway, watching Link as he eyed the stairs until the sound of her boots on the steps faded, leaving them alone on the landing.

“I get the feeling she doesn’t like us very much,” Zelda said, breaking the silence.

Link snorted. “No, I don’t think she does,” he agreed.

“...Well, there’s not much we can do about that,” Zelda said. “Shall we see our accommodations, then?”

Link nodded, then slipped past into the room ahead of her, a hand on the knife he carried at his belt as he stalked through the room. Zelda paused in the doorway, gazing about in fascination.

The room they’d been given faced eastward, and the sun shone golden through the open windows, gilding the pale sandstone walls. The floor was wooden, like the landing, but polished to a dark gloss, and covered in broad woven rugs. The geometric, tessellating patterns were familiar, like the rugs Zelda’s mother had imported before her death, but far more ornate, the colors brighter— and, when Zelda removed her boots, the weave was tighter and the cloth finer than the ones she remembered. A pair of canopy beds sat with their headboards to the western wall, both hung with heavy woolen drapes patterned in deep red and blue and drawn back with cord at each of the posts. They were lower than Zelda was accustomed to, as seemed typical for Gerudo furniture, but when she made her way over to one and pressed on the sleeping cushion, it yielded to her hand as her bed at home did. The sheets were undyed linen, but were smooth and fine under her palm. Two chest-of-drawers stood on the wall opposite the beds, with two washstands between them. Curls of steam issued from the pitchers beside the basins themselves, and when Zelda pulled open the cabinet in the stand she found it well-stocked with towels and washcloths.

“Dragmire knows how to take care of her guests,” Zelda said approvingly. “I’d hoped I’d have an opportunity to bathe before the meeting.”

“If you want to bathe, I’ll go and get us breakfast,” Link said. “And I’ll help you with your hair when I get back.”

Zelda nodded, but she’d hardly gotten her thanks out before Link was gone again, leaving his pack on the bed closer to the door— as was their custom when they shared a room on the road. She sighed and set the dusty thing on the floor, then removed her own pack and began to go through her gear. She left her usual travelling clothes in the bottom of the pack— the long woolen tunic and trousers would be too heavy and too informal to wear— and removed her dress robes, laying them out across the bed to remove the wrinkles they’d developed. The finely woven sky-blue and violet dress looked almost out of place on the undyed bedsheets, as did her gold earrings and her circlet, when she located them. 

She ignored it in favor of shedding her kurta and sirwal, shaking the dust from them and laying them out in the sun, then poured the steaming water into the basin and began to bathe. Face first, then her chest and shoulders, under her arms, then anywhere else that might have collected dust during the trek, before emptying the basin and beginning again with her hair, wetting it down and combing the dust from her thick, dark locks.

Then she dressed again, undyed chemise and dress robes and girdle, bracelets and broad, heavy necklace, and then her earrings. Her circlet she set aside— until Link made his return and helped with her hair, it would only be in the way.

The door swung open at that moment, as if her thoughts had summoned him, and Link stepped through, pushing it closed behind him with his foot. He had a bundle of cloth in one hand, and a waterskin in the other, both of which he set down on his bed.

“That didn’t take very long,” she said, and sat down to join him.

“The bazaar got busy,” he replied, pulling down his veil. “I got into the tea shop before it got too full, though.”

“What sort?”

“Mint.  _ Iced _ mint.”

He ducked down to his pack to retrieve their camp cups, then straightened and uncorked the waterskin,  pouring a stream of greenish liquid from the mouth of it into their cups before handing one to her. It was chilled against her hands, but still redolent of mint, and Zelda's mouth watered. She took a careful sip, relishing the cool, sharp taste of the tea, closing her eyes to savor it properly.

"It's delicious," she said, opening her eyes to meet his gaze. "What else did you get?"

Link spread his hands, indicating his haul. "Some boiled eggs," he said. "And a couple of hydromelon tarts for us to share, and some flatbread— and this stuff the vendor called  _ hummus _ , I think she said it was made from some kind of ground  _ beans _ ?"

Zelda gave an approving hum, and picked up one of the eggs, carefully stripping it of its shell and setting the pieces back down into the cloth napkin Link had packed them in, to be disposed of later. He'd brought ground rock salt, she noticed, and ground pepper, and she sprinkled them over the egg to season it, watching Link tear into one of the hydromelon tarts. They looked chilled, like the tea had been, and for a moment Zelda wished he'd brought back something hot for breakfast. She put the thought aside quickly. Lunch would be light, and  _ dinner _ would be hot. Eating anything too warm in the heat of the day would be foolish.

"So what did you hear in the markets?" Zelda asked. "Anything of interest?"

"Dragmire's active in the field, it sounds like," Link said around his bite. He held up his hand, chewing quickly, then swallowed before he spoke again. “Apparently she’s been leading expeditions up to the old Yiga hideouts to try and sniff them out.”

Zelda shook her head. “If it’s the one up Karusa Valley, they won’t be there. My grandfather ferreted them all out a century ago, when he took back the Thunder Helm they’d stolen.”

"Clearly they had some, because the gossip says the hideout was  _ long _ abandoned and there was no sign of where they might have gone," Link said. "And no one was able to track the raiding party that...you know, they were too busy with the old chieftain to—"

"To track her killers," Zelda finished.

"It wasn't just her, either," Link said. "Apparently they killed half her personal guard, too, and put the other half in the infirmary. The whole town is  _ enraged _ over it, and from what I can tell most of the  _ merchants _ would happily see a ban on Hylian and Sheikah traders inside the city walls until Dragmire roots the Yiga out and destroys them, no matter what it would do to their trade numbers."

Zelda grimaced. “That’s going to make negotiations  _ very _ hard, then. My father won’t be happy with this whole affair unless I can get the Gerudo Town bazaar open to men.”

Link hummed, taking a sip of his tea before he answered. “...Sounds more like His Majesty wants to open Gerudo Town for  _ conquest _ , not trade.”

“...That’s more than likely the case,” Zelda said quietly. “Lady Barriara— the last chieftain— was a friend of my mother’s, and Father didn’t dare try to take advantage of her, but...I think he may see her daughter’s relative youth as a chance to force the Gerudo to swear allegiance to him.”

Link scoffed. “Don’t tell him I’ve said this, but he’s been reading too many hero myths.”

She had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing outright, but the way Link grinned— rackish and lopsided— made it worth it.

“I won’t say a word,” she said, when she sobered, “as long as  _ you _ don’t tell him when I abandon negotiations to hunt the Flame with you.”

“I wasn’t going to tell him anyway,” Link said. He paused, finished his tart, then picked up one of the eggs and began to peel it. “...Also, another thing about Dragmire, before I forget.”

“Oh?” Zelda asked, sitting forward.

“Apparently she’s a mage,” he said. “According to one of the guards in the teahouse, she’s been testing some of the old wards on the gates since the Yiga...you know. Supposedly that’s why they’re keeping all of them locked at night, now— the wards only work like they’re supposed to if everything’s shut and locked.”

“Not sure how well  _ that _ will work,” Zelda said, then picked up one of the pieces of flatbread and sniffed the brownish paste Link had brought back with him.  _ Hummus _ , he’d said. It smelled earthy, and sort of salty-spiced, and she dabbed at it with a finger for a taste before spreading it on the top of the flatbread. “My grandmother said the Yiga are  _ masters _ of a more powerful version of the Sheikah shadow-step, one that  _ might _ give them enough range to get past the walls.”

“The guards think it works,” Link replied with a shrug. “The one talking about it said the wards were supposed to be powerful enough to keep out the entire Hylian army, but if they’re old…”

Zelda shrugged in turn. “Tell you the truth, I have no idea how Gerudo magic works. Some of them throw lightning, some of them can set things alight with their minds, apparently some cast  _ wards _ —”

“Oh, Dragmire does the first one too,” Link said. “ _ Supposedly _ she’s the most powerful mage since Lady Urbosa, back in your grandma’s day.”

“I’ll need to see it to believe it,” Zelda said. “Just like I’d need to see those wards in action.”

“I don’t think they’d have a good reason to lie about it, especially because they didn’t know I was listening,” Link said. He paused, then eyed the washbasins longingly. “...Will you mind if I—”

“Oh, no! Go ahead, I won’t look,” Zelda said hastily, and averted her eyes.

Link snorted and poked her gently in the shoulder, then stood, pulling the curtain at the foot of the bed closed for privacy. She could hear the shuffle of fabric on fabric clearly enough, though— the image of him shirtless was plain without her even needing to see it, and she settled back a bit to finish her tart, mulling over him and the upcoming meeting alike.

If she somehow failed in these negotiations, she’d return home in disgrace and be punished for it. Her father couldn’t remove her from succession, of course— she was her mother’s only daughter and the only girl-child in her generation, since her cousins were all boys and younger than her besides— but he would find  _ some _ way to punish her for it. Take away her freedom to work with the archaeologists, likely as not. He disapproved of it anyway. Her  _ mother _ had encouraged it, when she’d been alive, but her father had deemed the pursuit  _ unseemly _ and made it quite clear he thought it a waste of time and a stain on her dignity.

That or he’d find someone to marry her off to and put an end to her travelling for good, a thought that made her grimace. The sons of noblemen were an exercise in frustration. Most of them had sprung from merchant stock, or from the shattered remnants of the noble houses  _ before _ the Calamity two centuries before, and yet they'd so quickly grown accustomed to the court her grandmother had painstakingly reconstructed. They'd gotten used to the renewed presence of the knighthood, to the crews of monster-hunters her grandparents had organized to make the land  _ safe _ for the people once more, and they’d gotten  _ soft _ . Not a one of them had ever stood and meditated in holy springs to feel the pulse of magic in the ley lines, not a one of them could split an apple in twain from over two hundred paces, and not a one of them had ever failed to turn his nose up at her calloused hands when she invited them to dance.

They were nothing at all like Link, she mused, eyeing the curtain again. The splash of water filled the air, and Link’s soft, tuneful humming of a song they’d heard in a tavern on their journey. The eldest son of an Akkalan farmer, he’d spent his whole life in the lowlands around Kanalet Village, the small farming town that had sprung up just north of the ruined keep. She hadn’t thought much of him when they’d first met— he’d been a gangling youth whose clothing still smelled like goats— but she’d been quick to reevaluate him after the first week in his company.

And not once had he shied from her bow-roughened hands, either.

The splashing went quiet, and then the fabric rustling began again, and a minute later Link ducked around the side of the bed. His hair was damp but drying quickly in the warming air, and his kurta and sirwal were rumpled but free of dust, his veil loose around his neck. He settled onto the bed beside her, bouncing on it momentarily before relaxing.

“You wanted me to do your hair, right?” he asked.

“Yes, please,” she said, and turned her back to him.

His fingers were in her hair a moment later— and then his comb, separating it out into sections to braid, starting at her part and working around to the side in a loop to pull it back away from her face. Then he began a second braid, on the opposite side, and Zelda recognized the style; the two would form a loop like a crown of laurels, and the rest of her hair would be pinned up and out of the way at her nape. A simple style, sure, but an elegant one, and his hands were skilled.

He’d hardly finished, and settled her circlet on her brow, when someone rapped on the door. Zelda jumped, her eyes flying open, then glanced at the windows— the sun was  _ much _ higher now. Where had the time gone? One of Link’s hands twitched, and she grabbed his wrist to still him. He’d gone for a blade already, and she didn’t want to imagine the consequences if he drew on one of the guards.

“Just a moment!” she called, then flapped a hand at Link. “Veil, now!”

Link pouted up at her a moment, but he pulled his veil back up and affixed it in place. Zelda patted his shoulder, then helped him straighten the scarf. She’d have grabbed her own in solidarity, but it would have ruined the effect of her dress robes, and she couldn’t afford that in negotiations. She stood, brushing at her skirt to straighten the creases, then made her way to the door and threw it open. Aveil stood on the other side, her muscular arms folded across her chest. One of her brows arched critically, and Zelda did her best not to flush under the warrior’s stare.

“Thank you for your patience,” Zelda said, steeling her spine.

Aveil nodded in return. “The chieftain is ready to receive you now,” she said. “If you’re ready, I will escort you to the stateroom— but your guard must stay here.”

Link made an incredulous noise behind her, and Zelda reached back to stop him from making any hasty moves.

“It’s alright,” she said under her breath. “I’ll be fine, Link.”

“...I don’t like it,” he replied, but he subsided, taking a pace or two back away from the door.

Zelda turned back to Aveil, raising her chin. “I am ready. Lead the way.”

The guard nodded, then turned sharply and set off down the stairs, leaving Zelda to hurry along behind her again. She bit back a protest—  _ surely _ this was against protocol?— but, no, better to save the curtness of the guard for Dragmire’s ears personally. Aveil left the staircase at the first landing rather than the ground floor, crossing a broad hall through the middle of the palace, then made a left-hand turn at a red-tiled mural Zelda didn’t have the chance to stop and study.

She stopped a few doors down, standing beside one with the crest of the Gerudo marked in the center. Zelda paused, too, watching as Aveil knocked, then unlatched it and pushed it open, gesturing for her to enter. She nodded her head, almost reluctant to offer the courtesy, and stepped inside.

And stopped dead.

There were two people waiting for her in the stateroom, and her eyes flew first to the guard leaning against the chieftain’s low-slung, ornate chair. She hardly looked older than Link, or Zelda herself, though she wore the pristine white enamel of the Gerudo royal guard. She wasn’t the shock, though, for all that she was draped against the back of the chair and whispering in the chieftain’s ear.

No, she wasn’t the problem.

The Gerudo seated in the chair, wearing the crown of a Gerudo chieftain, was a man.

It didn’t seem possible, and yet the longer she looked, the more man he seemed— and he could be nothing  _ but _ Gerudo, with his umber-dark skin and long, fiery hair twisted in an elaborate bun beneath the ceremonial headdress. A large, deep orange topaz cabochon in a gold setting rested between his heavy brows, and the eyes beneath them were a pale and shocking gold like the eyes of a hawk. His large, proud nose had clearly been broken and set incorrectly at some point, but that did nothing to detract from the stark handsomeness of his features. A broad-collared necklace of hammered gold plates rested heavily on his bare collarbones, and the wrap-skirt and sash he wore were both mourning-black, embroidered crimson at the hems. Two fresh scars, still pink with healing, curved along either side of his chest beneath his pectorals.

Zelda bit her lip, hoping the pain would shock her back into the moment.

“Princess Zelda of Hyrule,” he said, and Zelda grit her teeth. His voice was low and smooth, quiet in a way that carried far too easily in the small room. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Chief Dragmire?” she asked.

He nodded in response. “Indeed.”

Zelda inclined her head in turn. “We are honored by your hospitality, my lord,” she said. “Especially in this time of grief. The Crown of Hyrule extends our sympathies over the loss of your noble mother.”

Dragmire’s golden eyes narrowed sharply. “Do you indeed, my lady?” he said. “Perhaps  _ you _ might, but I somehow doubt your  _ noble father _ does the same.”

Hot shame welled up in Zelda’s throat. She tamped it down immediately, hands fisting in the sleeves of her robe.

“I would not have travelled so far to offer you our condolences if they weren’t sincerely meant!” she protested.

One heavy crimson brow arched, and Dragmire settled his chin against the heel of his hand, studying her with cool dispassion. “Oh? So this is nothing to do, then, with the  _ treaty _ you and I are meant to renegotiate?”

Her stomach turned uncomfortably. “...Well...it  _ must _ be renegotiated— you know the tradition as well as I, each chieftain of the Gerudo—”

“Must negotiate the treaty between my people and yours, yes, I’m  _ well _ aware,” Dragmire retorted, rolling his eyes. “I am  _ also _ well aware of the history of Hyrule’s conquests of the Tantari Desert across the millennia, and of your lord father’s ambitions. We  _ do _ have trade with the Faronese as well as with Hyrule, as I’m  _ sure _ you are aware.”

“Well then, what do you want me to do?” Zelda snapped. “Or did you merely invite me here to  _ insult _ me?”

“Oh, I think you’re capable of doing that yourself,” Dragmire said, and Zelda’s nails bit crescents into the flesh of her palm. “But no, I invited you here to inform you that on no uncertain terms will I accept  _ any _ of the proposed revisions to the treaty that you’ve been sent here to enact. You would be better served to return home, and take your petty merchants with you.”

“I am afraid I cannot do that,” Zelda said. “I understand your concerns, especially under the circumstances, but—”

“If you understand, then why do you persist in pushing this point? Even  _ if _ I had no reason to fear an attempt by the Hylian crown on our sovereignty, I would seek to further restrict the presence of  _ foreign merchants _ in  _ my _ city! The  _ Yiga _ are abroad!” Dragmire sprang to his feet, and Zelda’s eyes dropped to his hands, clenched in tight fists. “You haven’t the  _ slightest _ idea what it’s like to—”

He cut himself off there, looking away from her with shoulders heaving. Zelda winced. She’d heard her grandmother’s stories about the Yiga— how they would disguise themselves as ordinary travellers and pass unseen through villages and towns, how they had stalked her grandfather merely for the Slate on his hip and the Sword he carried, wanting to make an offering of his blood to the Calamity they worshipped. How they had vanished, a century ago, after her grandfather raided their hideout and slew their leader.

How everyone who was still alive to remember them hoped Calamity’s defeat had shattered them and dispersed them to the four winds.

“...I understand,” Zelda said quietly. “Your people are under threat from an enemy you cannot see, and you fear for their safety.”

Dragmire exhaled raggedly. “...You understand, then, that I will do what I must to defend them. I will not have any more  _ taken _ from us, as they took my mother.”

“I would not ask you to put them in danger,” Zelda replied.

Dragmire’s brows shot for his hairline. “...Then I see no reason to continue this argument,” he said. “So long as you will agree to grant me what lenience I will need to protect my people’s lives, I am willing to negotiate with you.”

Zelda nodded. “I’m amenable to this, and will do my best to respect that boundary,” she said. “But...before we begin our negotiations, I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Ask, and you will see,” Dragmire replied. His brows had arched further, and for a moment, Zelda hesitated— this would give him leverage to hold against her during their negotiations.

She put the thought aside. If Link failed his task, the outcome of their negotiations wouldn’t matter. There wouldn’t be a future left to apply the new treaty  _ to _ .

“My escort, Link. H—  _ she _ has never left Hyrule before, and I would ask that she be permitted to explore the city at her leisure, and to leave its walls if need be,” Zelda said.

Dragmire hummed thoughtfully, tapping his chin. “...I shall grant your request, so long as you and Link will agree to my conditions,” he said. “Firstly, Link shall be granted permission to explore the city at her leisure, so long as she does not trespass on the Temple of the Triune, which is closed to outsiders, as is our custom. Secondly, Link’s ability to leave the walls of Gerudo Town shall be conditional upon the presence of a member of my guard to accompany her.”

Zelda narrowed her eyes. “I believe we will both be amenable to your first request, but may I ask the reasoning behind the second?”

Dragmire’s full lips curved up in a smirk. “My reasoning is twofold. For my benefit, I would prefer to avoid the potential for Hylian conspiracies arising without warning— and for yours, I seek to avoid a diplomatic incident wherein your escort is murdered by a marauding Yiga.”

Zelda grimaced. If she agreed to his conditions, that would severely limit their ability to gather information and locate the Flame without alerting anyone who might  _ stop _ them— or, worse, without causing another diplomatic incident. But, at the same time…

“What if I decline?” she asked.

“Then I’m afraid Link will be confined to the palace and the town, and she won’t have an opportunity to go  _ sightseeing _ while you and I negotiate,” Dragmire replied. His golden eyes had narrowed, and that wicked grin still tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Zelda grabbed at her sleeves to keep from punching him. He  _ had _ her, there. Somehow, impossibly, he’d guessed they had a second errand in the desert, and— well. Either she allowed him to track Link’s every move outside of Gerudo Town, or she condemned their mission to failure and the world to Calamity.

“Very well,” she said, raising her chin. “I accept.”

“Excellent,” Dragmire said, and smiled at her, baring teeth as white and even as a row of pearls. “Nabooru? Please ensure the guard is aware that they may have a Hylian vai requesting an escort, for as long as the Princess of Hyrule is my guest— and make sure Aveil  _ informs _ her of the conditions the Princess has agreed to.”

The guard in white— Nabooru— nodded. “I might be willing to accompany her myself, if I’ve got the time,” she said, and Dragmire snorted— Zelda’s hands balled into fists again.

Then Nabooru ducked out the door and was gone, leaving only the two of them and their silence in the stateroom. Dragmire paused, looking Zelda up and down as if realizing, for the first time, that she was a physical  _ person _ instead of the manifestation of an argument. Then he turned to one of the shelves on the walls, retrieving a thick folio from one of the cubbies, and seated himself at the low table, gesturing for her to join him. His eyes had gone dark. Zelda hesitated a moment, then sat down across the table from him, watching his large hands open the leather binding and spreading out sheafs of paper for her inspection.

“Well, then,” he said, and looked up, meeting her gaze evenly. “Shall we begin?”


	3. Chapter 2: A Vision of Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So, I guess I lied a little about timing? It's been almost two weeks, right? Anyway, the second arc is coming along nicely, so here's the second chapter a little ahead of schedule. Enjoy!

Link paused in the stairwell a few steps up— and around the corner, out of sight— from the servants’ entrance in the southern wing of the palace, checking his veil one last time before he slipped out. When he’d gone to explore Gerudo Town’s bazaar the day before, while Zelda had been deep in the afternoon’s negotiations, the scarf had slipped out of its fold and nearly exposed him in the marketplace. He couldn’t afford to risk that again. He hooked two fingers under the layer of cloth that rested over his nose and tugged gently, half-expecting to feel the corner tucked by his ear slide free again.

When the fold held he let himself relax a little, then patted the pouch on his belt to make sure everything was in there. Sheikah Slate, yes— he never left it if he could help it. Wallet, yes. Knife on his left hip, as usual— just as a precaution. Odds were he wouldn’t need it. As busy as the bazaar had been the day before, there hadn’t been any conflict that he’d observed.

That and, well, if the guards caught him picking a fight he’d be thrown out of town, and then Zelda would  _ really _ be unhappy with him.

She certainly hadn’t been happy the previous evening, when she’d returned to their quarters after a day of negotiation to get him up to speed on everything. Dragmire had apparently stonewalled her at every turn, and the two of them had been up late in the evening pouring over her notes on the session and the records she had of trade over time, on travel records, on past treaties with the Gerudo and how those had changed over the centuries. His head had been spinning by the time she finally set her notes aside and blew out the candles for the evening— every glimpse of her royal responsibilities left him more boggled than the next.

Satisfied with the state of his kit— and with the absence of the guard usually stationed at the servants’ entrance— he slipped out of the unobtrusive wooden door and into the streets. 

Even the alleys south of the palace were busy by midmorning. Gerudo vai sat or stood in small groups at every street corner, packs of children raced up and down the uneven cobblestones, the occasional Hylian, Sheikah, or Rito woman wandered a sidestreet as if looking for the way back to the central plaza. Link wove through it all, feeling invisible in his plain green kurta and blue veil. Like he was just one of the women.

The bazaar was bustling by the time he reached the main square. Gerudo vai hawked their wares in loud voices, waving at anyone who passed by. A cluster of women had formed outside one of the shops set into the buildings— primarily a tea shop, as far as Link was aware, though they also served a drink the Gerudo who had served him the previous morning called 'kahve', which had smelled  _ heavenly _ but tasted  _ terribly _ bitter— and he wove his way through the cluster to the bar inside and settled down at one of the stools. The air was heady and redolent with the scent of black tea from Tabantha, with local Gerudo mint, with the unfamiliar roasted tang of fresh kahve. The woman on the other side of the counter caught his eye and winked at him, and a moment later a glass of iced mint tea slid across the time-smoothed wood and into his waiting hands.

The tea shop was too loud for Link to really overhear any conversations, but his eyes were drawn to the trio of guards near the end of the bar, and he tilted his ears as much as he could, trying to listen through the din to catch their words. The noise subsided a moment, and—

“—in the Temple again until sometime after first watch last night,” the shortest of the three said, pushing a heavy lock of red-blond hair over her shoulder. “Apparently Nabs had to escort him back to his quarters.”

“That’s, what, the third time this week?” That was the one leaning against the counter, the slim one with  _ pink _ hair tied back in a thick, ropey braid.

“Try the fifth,” said the tallest guard. Unlike the other two, she’d cropped her hair nearly to the scalp on both sides and pulled the top and back up in a high horsetail. “He’s been like that since Lady Barriara died.”

The almost-blond hummed, shoulders sagging slightly. “Poor Mira. And with the word about Farosh out of the Vatorsa—”

“He’s looking too much for signs and portents, if you ask me,” the tallest said. “Danda and her dragons, that meteor the week after the chief died, and now with that blighted Hylian princess digging around and the rumors out of Hyrule that someone’s drawn the Blade again—”

The other two hissed warningly at her— the pink-haired one actually reached up and clapped a hand over her mouth, and Link averted his gaze as the almost-blond cast a wary glance around the tea shop, her glittering green eyes anxious.

“Not in  _ public _ , Furosa,” the pink-haired one hissed.

“I’m just  _ saying _ ,” the tallest huffed. “The sooner he stops letting the Rova tug his ears like he’s still a child and gets back to looking for those  _ fucking _ Yiga, the better off all of us will be.”

The almost-blond said something else, but something clattered down on the bar counter. Link jumped, losing the conversation thread immediately.

"Something the matter, honey?" the barkeep asked. "You're awful distracted today."

"I— it's nothing," Link said. "Just thinking."

"Anything you need help with? You look a bit lost," she replied, and Link paused a moment, looking her up and down. The barkeeper was fairer than most of the other Gerudo Link had seen, and her thick red hair was threaded with grey. She was dressed differently, too— a smock over her kurta, stained in places, and she wore a full-length skirt rather than sirwal. And, well— she was a barkeeper. People talked in tea houses and bars and forgot other people could overhear.

"...I'm new to town, just came in yesterday," Link said slowly. "And I'm...really curious about local history? I've never left Hyrule before, and we don't hear much about the Gerudo in Akkala."

The barkeep hummed. "Well, if you weren't Hylian I'd say to go to the Temple of the Triune. The Rova— the priestesses, in your language— they keep the history of the people there. But that's out of your bounds, so..." She drummed her fingers on the counter, long nails rapping sharply on the wood. "You could talk to the archaeologists, I suppose. They're on the north end of town, right next to the inn. One of them came in yesterday talking about some big expedition to the ruins in the West Barrens she and the others were planning, I'm sure they'd have  _ something _ for you."

"That's good," Link said, and tugged thoughtfully at the end of his veil. "And if I wanted to know something about the local legends? You know, the spirits of the desert?"

That earned him a sharp bark of a laugh, and the barkeep reached back and grabbed a pitcher, refilling his cup of mint tea before she answered. "That's not information for outsiders, honey," she said. "A loose-lipped vai might talk, if you're listening, but the Desert of Mysteries and its spirits are anything but safe for little Hylian vai, even ones that walk like they carry swords."

Link flushed and ducked his head, avoiding her gaze. Most people couldn't pick out a swordsman's walk— he wasn't sure how she'd seen him walking, either, her eyes had been on the group of merchants ordering kahve when he'd come in.

"Take yourself to the archaeologists, honey," the barkeep said, and patted his hand. "Leave the local spirits to their business and keep an eye on your own."

"Thank you for the advice," Link said, and slid a red rupee across the counter to her. "...You know, I don't think I caught your name?"

"It's Telma, honey," the barkeep replied, and took the rupee from him. "You stay safe now, ya hear?"

“I can’t make any promises,” Link said, and picked up his mint tea again, sipping thoughtfully at it.

Telma clearly took that as a signal to go attend to other customers, and she bustled off almost immediately, leaving Link nursing his cup alone. The guards had cleared off, he noticed, and while the tea shop was still busy, the crowd had thinned. Before long it would clear entirely, and then a little Hylian 'vai' like him would stand out like a sore thumb. He finished his tea quickly, sliding the cup back across the counter towards Telma, then tightened his veil a little and ducked back out into the bazaar.

The sun was higher in the sky now, concentrating the shade to where it could still cling to the walls, or huddle itself under the vendors' awnings, and the people had done the same. It would be midday soon— the 'hour of madness,' as one guard he'd spoken to the day before had called it— and at that point most of the shops would close for a few hours while their owners retired to sleep through the heat of the day. Link wove through the crowd, heading quickly towards the north entrance to the plaza. If he wanted to catch the archaeologists, he'd have to do it fast.

Once he was off the main plaza, the noise of the crowds fell away, leaving the alleyway almost deafeningly quiet. It was  _ disorienting _ for a moment, until Link could shake it off and continue on.

The inn, thankfully, was clearly marked— by Hylian customs, even, though he supposed most travellers even to Gerudo Town would be Hylian. The crescent moon was carved into the stone over the lintel, the edges of it soft and worn with age. Link studied the doors on either side of the inn— one nearer to the east wall, the other almost directly in the middle of this building block— and kicked himself for not learning to read Gerudo. Their script was wildly different from Hylian— or even Sheikah, even  _ ancient _ Sheikah, which he was slowly learning to decipher over Zelda's shoulder as she studied ancient ruins.

Still, though— through the half-shuttered window to the west of the door to the inn, he could see a stack of thick books perched on the inside of the windowsill.  _ That _ looked like archaeologists to him. Zelda had similar stacks in her study in Hyrule Castle, and in her bedroom, and in her quarters in Kakariko— she'd even carried along a couple of books on ancient Hyrulean comparative religion, on the ancient Sheikah religion, and her own well-worn notebook for field notes. Link made his way up to the door and rapped at the doorframe.

Silence.

Then the door opened, and Link reeled. The face on the other side was  _ Sheikah _ — a woman maybe five years his senior, he thought, with thick glasses perched on her nose. Her red eyes, brilliantly magnified, peered through them at him, and her black hair was pulled back in what Link recognized instantly as a 'distracted scholar's bun'— the only updo Zelda could manage on her own.

"Well?" she asked, when he didn't say anything, and Link gaped at her a moment longer before gathering himself.

"Are you the archaeologists?" he asked.

"One of them," the Sheikah said. "This had better be important, girl. We're in the middle of a  _ vital _ translation."

"I just, um," Link said. "I had some questions about the ruins? Telma sent me."

"Oh," the Sheikah replied. She turned, and shouted back into the house, "Hey Shaima, there's a Hylian at the door! Says Telma sent her! Do I let her in?"

A voice— the accent was Gerudo— shouted back, "Well,  _ duh _ ? Telma knows not to send trouble our way.”

The Sheikah turned back to Link, scowling at him over her twisted wire frames, then sighed and pushed the door a little further open, gesturing for him to come inside. “Well?” she said. “You heard her. Come in, ask your questions, then  _ shoo _ . This isn’t a  _ museum _ for know-nothing Hylian vai to poke their noses in.”

Link grimaced back at her, but stepped in anyway and let the Sheikah close the door behind him.

The first room in the little dwelling was  _ full _ of books. Link had seen the inside of Hyrule’s royal library before, and in some ways this rivalled it— every spare inch of the wall had shelves on it, and every spare inch of those shelves was covered in books. Leather-bound field journals occupied most of the wall beside him, each marked and labelled in words he couldn’t read, organized by some system beyond his comprehension. Linen-bound books imported from Hyrule— these ones with stamped titles on the side in Hylian— occupied the better half of the rear wall, butting up against what looked like a repurposed wine rack that now held hundreds of scrolls. The left-hand wall had heftier shelves, piled high with sun-baked clay tablets, and— no, his eyes weren’t deceiving him— literal chunks of stone sat at the base of those shelves, every inch of their weathered surfaces graven with letters.

Zelda would have felt right at home here, he thought. He’d have to bring her down at some point— she’d  _ kill _ him if she missed out on this place entirely.

The Sheikah ducked through a curtained doorway into a neighboring room, and Link followed her as quickly as he could. A second woman— this one Gerudo— was seated at a large table near the window, bowed over a set of scrolls and a number of books, but she looked up when Link and the Sheikah entered. Her long coppery hair was pulled up in a neater bun than the Sheikah's, but it was also held up with a pair of chopsticks, which Link thought was nearly as dubious.

“So Telma sent you, huh?” the Gerudo— Shaima, he assumed— asked.

“She did,” Link said. “I, um. I had some questions about some of the ruins in the deep desert?”

“Been a while since we had any Hylians ask about that,” Shaima said. “You with one of the Hylian chapters of the guild?”

“No, but the friend I came here with is,” Link said. “She’s a little caught up in something right now, but she asked me to go on ahead and try and find your chapter. Her...mentor, in the guild, he’s working on a thesis and he sent us to find evidence for him.”

“Typical Hylian masters,” the Sheikah said, rolling her eyes.

“Ashei,” Shaima said, though her tone stayed mild. “You know what he’s  _ looking _ for, though. Right?”

“Old religious ruins,” Link said. “I’m pretty sure they’re Triune, though the last one had Hylia’s crest in it in places…”

“Well if they’re  _ Hyllic _ ruins, your friend’s mentor is gonna be out of luck if he wants anything older than three millennia,” Shaima said. “Worship of Hylia wasn’t brought to Tantari until about that time— it’s actually really interesting, Ashei’s mentor found lots of evidence of a  _ Calamity _ contemporary to that invasion and she thought there might be some sort of correlation between the two—”

“Stay on track,” Ashei huffed, then turned back to Link. “Well, girl?”

“...Triune, I think,” Link said. His gut had begun to tie itself in knots at the mention of a  _ Calamity _ , and...three thousand years ago felt significant...but before he could finish the thought it slipped away from him like fish in the current, leaving him with a dull ache at the base of his skull. “We found one that seems tied to her master’s thesis in Faron, and the writing in there was Ancient Sheikah. Z—  _ Hilda _ thinks it’s contemporary to the Divine Beasts, maybe even older.”

"Even  _ older _ ?" Ashei yelped. "You're  _ joking _ . The Divine Beasts are the oldest things anyone's—"

"Wasn't there the one excavation under the old Temple of Time that turned up something interesting a couple years back, though?" Shaima replied. "And those ruins out in the deep desert that we were going to take an expedition out to are probably  _ contemporary _ to the Divine Beasts, though it's hard to tell." She met Link's eyes there. "A lot of ruins out in the deep desert are so sand-blasted, or  _ full _ of the stuff, that it can be hard to safely uncover them at all, much less tell what may have been carved on them— oh, but I'm getting off-topic again. Would you mind telling me what the murals looked like, in your friend's temple?"

"The main one on the wall was the Triforce," Link said. "Though there was this...weird circular crest in the middle of it." He didn't tell her how staring too long at that central crest had caused a sharp ache between his brows, like he'd struck his head on something.

"Hang on," Shaima said, flipping through a second notebook. She turned a few more pages, then held the book up to Link. 

In the center of the page was the symbol from the temple of the sacred flame, a moon-within-a-half-moon-within-a-crescent. 

"Did it look anything like this?"

"Exactly like that," Link replied. The strange nagging was back. Surely that symbol was more familiar than just the temple— surely he'd seen it before?

"Farore temple, then," Ashei said. "Triune temples usually come in threes, though— three altars, three different rooms, something like that. Shaima, show him Din and Nayru's crests too."

Shaima flipped the pages dutifully, and sprawled across the next two were two more crests, both hauntingly familiar— the three-lined symbol from the last temple, and one other— three crescent moons, joined along the back of the arch, each set with a smaller circle between their horns.

"The one with the three lines, that was there," Link said. "That one's...Din's?" Shaima nodded in confirmation, and Link forged on before he could stop himself. "But that one was in the middle of another mural on the wall, this big stylized flame thing— and there was writing under that, but it wasn't readable."

That wasn't entirely a lie— it wasn't at  _ all _ readable to him, and Zelda had only managed to decipher one line of it, and half of another— and what had she said about it? He couldn't quite remember...

"...Well, I don't think either of us have seen anything like that," Ashei said.

"There's nothing like that in any of our predecessors' journals, either," Shaima added, more sympathetically. "But we can send a message to the guild, see if anyone else has found something, and we can keep an eye out on future expeditions and let you know if we find anything."

"...Thank you, anyway," Link said. "I think I've got a better idea what we're looking at now."

"It's no trouble," Shaima said.

Ashei scoffed. "Yes it was," she said, then shot Link a look. "Now go on, get back to the inn before the hour of madness gets here. Hylian vai get heatstroke  _ so _ easily, especially fair ones like you."

That wasn't so much a cue to leave as it was an order, and Link nodded, bowing politely to the two of them before ducking back out through the curtained doorway, and then back out into the street.

The sun was higher than it had been when he had gone in, high enough that even the height of the walls and the narrowness of the streets was no shield from the glare. Link scowled, tugging his headwrap a little lower to shade his eyes, then turned and hurried back towards the palace, towards the north entrance this time. The streets were deserted, as was the servants' entrance, and Link was grateful for it— no one had to see him slump, panting, against the cool stone wall just past the entryway. The palace hall was cooler than the street, shaded and breezy, and it was a relief against his sweaty skin. 

He made his way further into the palace, towards the main courtyards, but something stopped him before he got very far. Some...awareness, almost. Not any of his ordinary senses, but some deep knowledge told him to go no further. There was  _ something _ he was supposed to do here, on the north side of the palace. He stopped in the hall, studying the wide stone tiles underfoot, the whitewashed masonwork and stone of the walls and ceiling, the elaborate blue and gold tiling at the level of his shoulder, and waited. Link had always been inclined to listen to his gut instincts, even if they made no sense; they'd never led him wrongly before.

...And wasn't the guards' training court on the north side of the palace, at any rate? He'd meant to check it out the evening before, but Zelda had asked him for his help with planning her strategy, and he had never been able to deny her anything. Surely it couldn't hurt to go and check it out, even if it was too hot to use?

His mind made up, Link padded up the hallway, his soft leather boots whispering over the stone. He counted doorways, trying to remember the directions he'd been given, and nearly walked past the door anyway, until the flash of sun on steel caught his eye. One of the guards had left her spear propped up against a wall just inside. Link ducked in, clinging to the shadows under the eaves, and made his way over to inspect it. The spear was longer than he was tall,  _ much _ longer, and even at his distance and angle he could see the spearhead was keenly honed.

The training court itself wasn't much different from the courtyards Hyrule's knights trained in back at the castle, as far as he could tell. Most of the court was open space, for drilling formations and maneuvers or sparring one-on-one or in small groups. A rank of straw dummies, thoroughly patched back to wholeness, stood along one wall, and Link poked at them curiously before deciding they weren't worth his attention. 

A large black scorch ran along the other wall, the one still cast in sunlight.  _ That _ wasn't like Hyrule Castle's training yards, Link noted. That looked like someone had misaimed a fire arrow and scorched the wall rather than a target, or something to that effect. He braced himself, then made his way across the courtyard, wincing a little at the burst of direct heat as he made his way to the scorch mark. It was no hotter here, but the scorch mark practically flaked under his fingers when he touched it, and there was a lingering scent of  _ something _ to the air, something sharp and almost acrid—

_ Ozone _ . A Gerudo mage had practiced here— had thrown a lightning bolt powerful enough to crisp the mortar between the stones and scorch the layer of dust and dirt laying across them to ash.

"What do you think you're doing here?" a voice demanded, and Link jumped and spun back towards the entrance to the courtyard. The light blinded him— he couldn't see the speaker, just her shadow, but her voice was oddly low even for a Gerudo—

The shadow moved as the one casting it stepped out into the sunlight, and Link’s mouth went dry, as if dust had abruptly infiltrated his veil. 

The newcomer was Chief Dragmire— it had to be, since Zelda had said he was...well, a  _ he _ . Link couldn’t help the way his eyes roved over the chieftain, taking him in as best he could. The man fairly  _ glowed _ in the noonday sun. His dark skin looked almost burnished, and his long, high-ponytailed hair haloed his head like a blaze of flame. The sun glittered on the bracer-like cuff bracelets he wore, and his eyes seemed to glow in the brilliant light. He was nude to the waist, where his wrap-skirt hung low on his hips, held in place with a brilliant red sash.

He was stunningly beautiful, in a way that made Link want to back away or grab a sword.

He stood his ground instead. "The guards told me I could use your training yard during our stay, if I wanted," Link retorted.

"I don't see a sword on you," Dragmire replied. " _ Or _ a training staff. Did you expect us to provide them?"

"I was in town before I came here," Link said. "Didn't think your guards would much appreciate me wandering around armed like I expect to be attacked."

"With the Yiga abroad, you might as well," Dragmire said.  _ He _ had training staves, Link noticed— two of them, one in each of his hands. And he was drawing closer with every step, so Link had to tilt his head back to keep meeting his gaze. He was  _ much _ larger up close than he had seemed from a distance.

"Do I have reason to think your guards won't be able to protect the bazaar?" Link said, keeping his voice even, and he relished the way Dragmire's eyes narrowed, glowering at him.

"You Hylians think you’re  _ so _ funny," Dragmire bit back. His posture was  _ frighteningly _ tense, Link noted— especially through his shoulders and arms, and his neck was stiff, his chin held high. 

If Link didn't know better, he would almost have said Dragmire was in  _ search _ of a fight.

“I’ll make you an offer, Link,” Dragmire said, and Link’s eyes snapped up from the powerful curve of a deltoid to the Gerudo King’s face. “I’ll provide you with a training staff, if you’ll spar a round with me.”

"Now?" Link asked, cocking his head challengingly.

In response, Dragmire tossed him the staff in his right hand. It flipped end over end, faster than Link had expected— but Link was faster. He snatched it out of the air, twirling it easily in his right hand, then passed it over to his left. When he looked back up at Dragmire, he'd produced a third staff from somewhere and taken a stance, his feet shoulder-width apart and staves held point-down. His eyes were focused on Link.

"Whenever you're ready," he said.

Link lunged at him in reply. Their staves clattered together, Link's one meeting Dragmire's two— and then Dragmire heaved him backwards. Link stumbled. Ducked a sweep of a staff over his head, jumped one aimed at his legs. His feet skidded for purchase on the dusty stones underfoot.

Dragmire didn't have the same sort of problem. He kept coming, staves lashing in tandem, pushing Link back. Too fast, for someone of his size. His eyes  _ blazed _ . Link ducked, evaded. Threw himself aside and rolled, trying to come up at Dragmire's back. The Gerudo's staff caught his next strike. And the next. And the next. Link gave ground. And gave again. He tried to hook an ankle around Dragmire's. The king danced backwards, barking a laugh, and Link growled. His reach was too large, or Link's too short. And  _ two _ staves...

Link's next strike slammed down on the back of Dragmire's hand.

Dragmire yelped. The staff clattered to the ground from numbed fingers. Link slashed at him again. Dragmire caught it on his remaining staff— and missed Link redirecting the blow, coming up from beneath with his body. He slammed into Dragmire's shoulder with his skull. The Gerudo reeled, staggering backwards. His boots slipped. 

Next thing Link knew he was sprawled across Dragmire's chest, the pair of them flat on the pavers. Link scrambled upright, straddled his chest and snatched up the nearest staff to rest the tip beneath Dragmire's chin.

This close, he could see Dragmire's eyes clearly. They were the color of good topaz, Link thought, a pale, clear gold shading down and down into their own depth, darkening to a ring of deep red-orange around the black of his pupils. Something hot curled in his stomach, and he had to tighten his grip on the stave to keep from pressing it forward, into the soft hollow of Dragmire’s throat. It had to be the adrenaline from the fight— he wanted to throw the staff down and run, too, or maybe cast it aside and take Dragmire by the sideburns to kiss the scowl off his lips.

He threw the staff aside and scrambled back to his feet instead, offering Dragmire his hand instead to help him up.

The Gerudo glowered at him a moment, golden eyes wary and intent, then reached up and clasped his hand around Link's wrist. His skin was warm against Link's, and his hand was nearly large enough to engulf Link's forearm— and something about that sent a thrill through him. Link pulled, setting his weight against Dragmire's, and a moment later he was face-to-face with Dragmire's broad chest. He took a step back, meeting the Gerudo's gaze again.

"...I should have anticipated your skill," Dragmire said. His tone was rueful, almost embarrassed, and unless the sun was playing tricks on Link's eyes, a high blush had spread across his cheekbones. "The King of Hyrule wouldn’t have sent his only daughter with an incompetent guard."

Link shrugged. "I'm short, even for a Hylian. Most people underestimate me."

The corner of Dragmire's lips quirked up into a wry smile. "Even so, that doesn't excuse my foolishness. Or, for the matter, my rudeness. I forgot I'd granted you use of the guards' training court."

"It's alright," Link said. "You've been negotiating with Zelda all morning, I think that's plenty of reason to have forgotten."

Dragmire groaned in response, burying his face in his hands. "Your princess is easily the most  _ infuriating _ person I've met."

Link couldn't help the laugh that burst out of him. That was one way to put it— Zelda was tenacious and hardheaded, and  _ frighteningly _ intelligent, and he'd never won an argument with her. She was used to getting her way, he'd gathered, or to breaking down whatever resistance she faced with carefully chosen arguments. Dragmire snorted, turning his face away, but not before Link caught the grin spreading across his features; a genuine one this time, he thought.

"Walk with me?" Dragmire offered. "We're fools standing out in the sun like this."

"Sure," Link replied. 

He hurried to keep up with the Gerudo's longer stride when Dragmire stepped back into the hallway, leading Link deeper into the palace. Dragmire didn't slow, either, but he didn't speed up to leave Link behind. They both fell quiet for a moment, and Link let Dragmire pull ahead, studying the topography of his back. His thick red hair, even in its high ponytail, fell nearly to the small of his back, swaying with each step. A set of pale scars rippled down his left shoulder— three of them, too ragged and parallel to have left by anything other than claws. Judging by the spacing, the only thing that could have left them was a bokoblin. He resisted the urge to reach up and touch his cheek through his veil.

They emerged into another courtyard a minute later, and Link gasped. The space was shaded and cool, the towering walls of the palace stretching high overhead. A ripple of water over stone caught his ear, and the soft patter of it falling into a pool, but he couldn't tell where it was from— every way he turned, a new plant blocked his path. Palms and ferns and curling vines, a spill of moss over one wall— and yes, there was the water, flowing down from a chute in the wall to trickle into a gravel-bottomed channel along the floor, irrigating the verdant space. Dragmire strode deeper in, and Link darted after him.

"My grandmother, Chief Riju, started this garden," Dragmire said quietly. "She thought it wise to keep an oasis in the palace, open to all of our people, to remind us..."

"Of what?" Link asked.

"...That things are worth fighting and dying for," Dragmire replied. "That hope thrives even in the barren places, if we are willing to cultivate it."

"...Why are you telling me this?" Link asked.

Dragmire sighed, and knelt in one of the paths, carefully straightening a slumped-over stem and replacing the stake holding it upright. “...Frankly, I hope you’ll tell your princess,” he said quietly. “She seems...so caught up in whatever’s going on in her head that she won’t hear a word I say, no matter how I try to speak with her. We spent the entire morning debating pointless,  _ miniscule _ tweaks in the wording of my mother’s treaty, and...I don’t know. It feels like she’s wasting time, trying to draw this out unreasonably.”

Link’s gut did a slow roll, and he tucked his thumbs into his belt to keep his hands from furling into fists. “I’m sorry she won’t listen to you, but I don’t know what I can do to help.”

“Just listen,” Dragmire said. He stood carefully, then moved deeper into the garden. Link followed him, watching him move through the greenery. “...You know, my grandmother mounted a campaign nearly a century ago to help Her Highness’s grandfather ferret out the Yiga. Their strongholds were in the border of our highlands, and I believe she felt...responsible, for the danger they posed to both your people and mine. And for a very long time, we thought she had been successful.” His voice cracked, and there was a pause before he continued. “...I wish we hadn’t been wrong. Or that we’d been more prepared, and not paid the price in blood.”

“...I’m sorry,” Link said. “...About your mother. You…”

“I know,” Dragmire said quietly. They entered a clear space near the back wall of the garden, where the water trickled into a pool, and Dragmire seated himself at the edge of it, staring intently at the floor. Link settled carefully next to him and watched his face. “...I was...very close to her. I wish…” He sighed, then looked up and met Link’s gaze. “...But wishing isn’t going to do me any good, and it won’t protect my people.”

“...Why do you think they struck  _ now _ , of all times?” Link asked.

“...I have my suspicions,” Dragmire said. “It’s the  _ Yiga _ . Why else would they move, after a  _ century _ of silence, if not—”

“—The Calamity,” Link said. “You think it’s waking up?”

“There have been signs. One of our guards reported sightings of the dragon Farosh among the Vatorsa and Risoka— the highland tribes— beginning just over three weeks ago, before my mother fell. And, of course, the Yiga are abroad again, and traders from the Toruma, out near the Desert of Mysteries, report sightings of spectral vai near the ancient battlegrounds, and—” Dragmire cut himself off, shaking his head. “...I don’t even know why I’m  _ telling _ you this, but...goddesses preserve me, I’ve had the same dream every night since my mother was slain.”

A sensation like ice trailed down Link’s spine, and he sat up a little and scooted closer. “...Can you tell me about the dream?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Fire,” Dragmire said immediately. “In the dream, I’m standing out in the desert, surrounded by ancient pillars. One of them is broken, and...I know, somehow, that I’m responsible for it. And there’s...it doesn’t make sense, but the ground is hollow and I can see through it, and there’s a  _ fire _ underground, and a voice that calls my name, and I get on my knees and dig for it but I can never reach it before I wake, no matter how deep I dig. The Rova…” he hesitated a moment, then sighed. “They’ve been telling me it’s just a stress dream. That the loss of my mother and the mantle of kingship has given me nightmares— but this  _ isn’t _ a nightmare. It  _ means _ something.”

“Is that why you’ve been spending so much time in the temple in the evenings?” Link asked.

Dragmire groaned. “...And I suppose you overheard the guards gossiping in the bazaar, if you know that,” he said. “Yes, that’s why. The Rova know something they aren’t saying, I’m certain of it, but I don’t know how to get them to  _ tell _ me.”

Link hesitated. A fire in the desert, buried in an underground ruin— it sounded too similar to be true. Or to be  _ coincidence _ .

Oh, Zelda was going to be  _ furious _ when he let her know, but his gut insisted.

“...I know why Zelda’s been delaying you in the treaty meetings,” Link said.

Dragmire’s head snapped up, and his golden eyes locked onto Link. “What?”

“...Look, I’m really not supposed to be telling you this, but…” Link hesitated. Dragmire’s stare riveted him to the spot, and the tang of ozone struck the roof of his mouth. “...Zelda and I have been following a prophecy. We were going to come here anyway, even if your mother was still alive— Zelda found some old inscription in a ruin, something about three Sacred Flames and reforging the Sword that Seals the Darkness to keep Calamity at bay, and— we think one of them is in the Gerudo Desert. And we need to find it, before anyone else can get hurt.”

The ozone smell vanished instantly. Dragmire rocked back in his seat, his eyes gone wide in shock.

“...And you think your Sacred Flame and the fire from my dream...may be the same thing,” Dragmire said quietly.

Link nodded. “It  _ has _ to be. They’re too alike for it to just be chance.”

Dragmire lunged forward abruptly, catching Link’s hands in his, and Link found himself reeling at the sudden contact. “ _ Yes _ ,” he said. “Link, please— tomorrow at sundown, at the Temple of the Triune— oh, it’s forbidden, but you and Princess Zelda  _ must _ come speak to the Rova with me. If your Sacred Flame and my dream are one and the same, they’ll know— they know  _ all _ of our lost holy places and forgotten temples in the Desert of Mysteries. We’ll find it.  _ Please _ . I need these answers as much as you do, and  _ together _ maybe we can  _ get _ them.”

“I— okay,” Link said, swaying slightly. “I...what do you want me to tell Zelda?”

“That I’m calling off our meeting tomorrow afternoon,” Dragmire replied, springing to his feet. He pulled Link up with him, seeming almost ready to spin him around before he remembered himself. “We’ll need time to prepare— of course, I have duties to attend to, and I’m certain the two of you will have  _ something _ you’ll need to ready in the meantime— and the meeting location, of course. The Temple of the Triune. At sundown. Tell her to come armed, just in case.”

“I will,” Link said, and bowed deeply. Dragmire nodded in return, his golden eyes dancing, and part of Link wanted to say something else— but the words escaped him.

He turned on his heel and fled instead, racing up the wide, white halls of the palace and the stairs leading to the quarters he and Zelda shared.

When he finally reached their room, he thought for a moment that Zelda might be out somewhere— the silence was almost as heavy in the air as the heat. She usually made some sort of noise even when alone, the rustle of her pen across paper or the turn of a page, the shifting of heavy fabric, the creak of furniture or floorboards, but he could hear nothing through the door. He hesitated, then rapped sharply at the wood, leaning closer to listen.

There. The muffled rustle of fabric as someone moved inside.

"You can come in," Zelda called. Link pushed the door open.

Zelda was perched on the edge of her bed, looking away from him, but she glanced up as Link entered, her brilliant green eyes glittering in the light through the closed shutters. She was in her plain clothes again, the unpatterned sirwal and kurta he remembered from their trek to Gerudo Town rather than the robes she'd worn that morning. Her thick brown hair was loose about her shoulders, and heavy with water— she must have bathed after her meeting with Dragmire; the air smelled of her floral soap. She had a comb in one hand, and was holding a book open with the other.

"That doesn't seem like an efficient way to do your hair," he said teasingly, shutting the door behind him.

"Efficiency wasn't my intention," Zelda replied. "I'm looking over some of the records on trade with the Gerudo that Father had sent to me before my next meeting with Dragmire."

Link pulled his veil down, then sat down behind Zelda on the bed, taking the proffered comb and beginning to work its teeth through her wet hair. "I...don't think you need to worry so much about it," he said.

"I take it you've spoken with him?" Zelda asked.

"Yeah, just before I came up here," Link said. "I know I wasn't supposed to, but I told him about the Flame."

Zelda stiffened under his hands, then shot him a look over her shoulder. "You  _ what _ ? Link!"

"I was thinking about the inscription!" Link said defensively. "You know the one line you only got part of, the bit about—"

"The  _ prince _ ," Zelda said, and slammed her book shut. "I'd forgotten all about that— you really think the prince it mentioned is Dragmire?"

"We were talking," Link said. "He wanted me to get you to cut him some slack on the negotiations, but— Zelda, he told me he'd been dreaming about a fire in the desert for  _ weeks _ ."

"Since we found the path to the first temple?"

"Since we found the path to the first temple. He's the prince from that inscription, he  _ has _ to be."

Zelda shifted restlessly under Link's hands as he finished combing her hair and laid the comb aside. "The line was mostly illegible," she said. "We don't know what it said in its entirety, just that the subject of the line was a prince. It could be a warning not to trust him, for all we know."

"You're right," Link said. "But he  _ did _ agree to take us to the Temple of the Triune to speak to the..."

"The Rova?" Zelda suggested.

"Yeah, the Rova," Link agreed, and carded his fingers through her hair. It was drying quickly in the heat, he noticed, and for a moment he was tempted to indulge and run his fingers through it again. Instead he separated it into three sections, then began to weave them together. "He said they might know something about the temple or the Sacred Flames."

Zelda hesitated, and Link paused in his braiding to let her think. "...I'm still not certain about this," she said. "I have a...a  _ feeling _ about Dragmire, and I can't quite place it, but he's...I'm more  _ aware _ of him than I am of...of most people."

She said the word with a weight to it that made Link sit up straighter— that tone meant, always, that she was talking about her powers, the sacred abilities inherent to her bloodline. When she said  _ aware _ , she meant it the same way she meant she was aware of the sacred towers or the goddess's springs, of the power she said lived beneath the land that he could never learn to feel. Something about it made him think about the urge he'd felt during the spar, the one that wanted him to shove the end of the training staff into Dragmire's throat.

"...I have a feeling about him too," Link said. "But also, he knows things we need to know, and if anything goes wrong, I think we can take him."

Zelda nodded thoughtfully under his hands.


	4. Chapter 3: The Risen Colossus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Well, I did say it would be two to three weeks between chapter postings, depending on how the next arc goes. This chapter is fairly long, though--almost 8k--so...if you're reading this late in the evening and have something you need to do tomorrow morning, this might be a good place to stop.
> 
> A quick note on worldbuilding: Ganondorf uses Gerudo place-names, rather than Hylian ones, such as _Parapa_ for Gerudo Town, or the _Ranel_ Oasis rather than the _Kara Kara_ Oasis.

The sun sank low over the western desert, the lower edge of the disc kissing the dark line of the sand. The sky had just begun to fade from gold and orange to rust, and crept ever darker as the minutes passed. And the King of the Gerudo stood and watched, from the west-facing windows of his bedroom.

The last time he’d had time to waste like that, gazing out at the sunset, had been three weeks ago. Back when he’d been responsible for little more than the day-to-day running of the guard and his own training in magic— back when the name  _ Dragmire _ still fit him like a glove, instead of chafing against his skin every time someone called him by it. If the Hylian Princess and her guard hadn’t chosen that week to show up, it would have been a few days more before he could shed it publicly. Before he could claim the name that had lingered on the lips of the Rova when he had emerged from the heart of the Temple bearing the ancient War Crown, the first to do so in over a thousand years.

_ His _ name.

Ganondorf.

He turned away from the window, pacing anxiously across his bedroom. He could hear his mother’s favored rebuke—  _ you’ll wear a hole in your rugs, Mira _ — and yet, somehow, he couldn’t stop himself. He had less than an hour until dusk, when he was supposed to meet the Princess and her guard outside the Temple of the Triune, and by his own estimation he was nowhere near prepared.  He was still clad in his court finery from his last meeting, over an hour before, and while he'd left his sirwal, kurta, and new armor on the chest at the foot of his bed in an effort to spur himself into action he had yet to even consider changing into proper dress for the Desert of Mysteries.

Another glance to the windows. The sun shimmered on the distant dunes and threw rock formations into sharp, shadowed relief.

A rap at his door frame jolted him from his distraction. He spun towards the doorway, then slumped in relief.

"Nabooru," he said.

“You look frazzled, Gan,” she said. 

As usual, her use of his name—  _ his _ name— settled his nerves a little more, and he sat down on his bed with a huff, waiting for her to come join him. Nabooru had traded her armor in for a pink floral pheran, her favored off-duty clothing, though she’d left her copper hair up in its customary ponytail. She joined him on the bed immediately, sprawling beside him and giving him a lazy once-over. One of her brows arched expectantly.

“...I  _ feel _ frazzled,” he said, then sighed. “...Like I shouldn’t be letting the Hylians into the Temple. It’s not  _ allowed _ , and for very good reasons.”

“So keep them out?” Nabooru suggested.

He shot her a dirty look. “...I feel like we’ve had this conversation before. You  _ know _ why I can’t do it.”

“Because you think they know something about your dream, you want them to help you convince Koume and Kotake to tell you whatever it is they  _ aren’t _ , and because you want to kiss the Princess, I know,” Nabooru replied, grinning. He shoved at her shoulder, and she pushed back, chuckling.

“The Princess is the  _ last _ Hylian I want to kiss, believe me,” he grumbled. “She’d take my lip off with her teeth if I tried.”

“Sounds more like a lizalfos than a princess,” Nabooru said.

Ganondorf grinned. “Oh? You kissed many lizalfos, Nabs?”

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Nabooru retorted, then grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him closer. “Now sit your dumb ass down, I’m not letting you go out in the Desert of Mysteries in a  _ ponytail _ .”

She reached up and tugged at the beaded wrap holding his hair in its high horsetail, and he all but groaned in relief as the tug on his scalp lessened, sinking back against her. Her fingers were in his hair a moment later, tugging at it and carding through the worst of the tangles. He let his eyes fall closed and settled quietly against her as she began to braid, starting at the crown of his head and working her way steadily backwards.

This, at least, hadn’t changed.

“...You really are nervous about this, huh,” she said quietly.

“There’s something the Rova haven’t been telling me,” he said. “They know something, and I  _ know _ they know something, but...the last time I asked, Aunt Koume said the time wasn’t right. The  _ time _ , Nabs. I’ve been having the dream for three weeks.”

Nabooru shrugged, and tugged lightly at his braid. “Well, don’t ask me. I’m not a Rova or a sage.”

“I know,” he said quietly, and let his shoulders slump. “I’m just….concerned that the longer I let this go, the less time I have to...to do whatever the dream is telling me.”

“...Well, it’s only been three weeks,” Nabooru said. “If the dream isn’t a nightmare yet, I think you’ll still have time.”

“Now when did you get so wise?” he asked, turning to look at her.

Nabooru finished off his braid before she answered, wrapping the tail in one of his plain leather thongs and tucking the end in, then flicked it over his shoulder to pop him in the face. “I didn’t,” she said. “I just haven’t been as distracted as you have, and I haven’t been mooning over a Hylian either. How’d the Princess seduce you into this, anyway?”

Ganondorf reached back to swat at her. " _ She _ didn't seduce me into anything. That  _ knight _ of hers, on the other hand—"

"Wait,  _ really _ ?!" Nabooru's voice had risen to a squeak. "I didn't think you  _ went _ for short vai like that!"

"I—  _ no _ , Din  _ preserve _ me—" he sputtered, the blood rushing to his face in a blush. He could still feel the weight of Link perched on his chest, the tip of the staff at his throat. "There was  _ no _ seducing— that is— she talked me into it, that's all—"

Nabooru laughed, in the tone that said he'd made too big a deal of it for her to believe him. "Whatever you say, Gan."

“Oh, fuck off.”

“At least I won’t be fucking a Hylian. You think they even know  _ how _ , or does their goddess just drop a new Hylian out of the sky every time a couple wants a baby?”

"I don't think I'll be finding out, because I'm  _ not _ fucking Link."

"You even remember her  _ name _ , how cute."

"Shut  _ up _ ," he hissed, and turned around to shoot a glare at her.

Nabooru flicked his nose in response, her hazel eyes dancing. "C'mon, are you planning on going on that date of yours, or are you gonna stand that poor little vai up and leave her all on her own tonight?"

"It's not a  _ date _ ," Ganondorf grumbled, but he pushed himself to his feet and turned his back to Nabooru, tugging at his sash and letting it and his skirt drop to the floor. "And anyway, the princess is coming with, so that 'poor little vai' won't be alone anyway."

"Ganondorf, you  _ lucky _ king," Nabooru said, and wolf-whistled. 

Ganondorf lobbed his sash at her in response, then began pulling on his sirwal. Like the rest of his garb, it was mourning-black— he'd begin introducing more major colors at the end of the month, when the first grief period was over— though the hem was reinforced with crimson embroidery. He pulled his kurta on next, then belted it at the waist before lifting his new breastplate, running his fingers thoughtfully over the sleek, dark curve of it. It was flatter than his old one had been, less curved, to accommodate the weight off his chest he'd shed when he ascended the throne. He sighed and pulled it on, buckling it into place, then did the same with his vambraces before turning back to Nabooru.

"Well?" he asked, and spread his arms.

"Kingly," she replied, grinning. "But you forgot something." She twirled something around her right index finger, something that flashed in the light— his old topaz diadem, which he had set aside when he assumed the mantle of kingship. "You'll want this thing, out there in the dunes."

"Right," he said, and took it from her gratefully.

The diadem was an important tool for a Gerudo mage— different gemstones allowed for increased control over whichever element the gem was aligned with, and while Ganondorf was more than experienced enough to manage his lightning, a little extra help— and stored power— was never amiss in the Desert of Mysteries. He settled it on his brow, making sure the topaz cabochon rested over the center of his forehead.

"...Thank you, Nabooru," he said quietly, once it was done.

Nabooru sighed and stood, joining him in a matter of steps and taking hold of his biceps. She met his gaze evenly, and held it. "It's nothing. You...take care of yourself out there. Come home to us safely."

She pulled him close, then, and Ganondorf buried his face in the crook of her neck and hugged her back. Nabooru was sturdy in his embrace, and the firmness of her grip was stabilizing. Whatever was coming, he could face it.

Then he released her, stepping back without a word, and she let him go.

He retrieved his scimitars from his chest, checking their edges one last time before he buckled the sheaths to his belt, pulled on his boots and laced them securely, then slung his travelling cloak over his shoulders. The last thing he did, before he left his room, was pull a round buckler over his back and strap it into place.

The streets were beginning to darken by the time he managed to slip out of the palace. Gerudo vai lit lamps to brighten them as dusk fell, and light spilled through shutters opened to take in the cooling evening breeze. The air already tasted of the night's chill— it wouldn't be long, he thought, before it dipped down enough to freeze water. The sun still lit the sky to the west, though it was far dimmer now, and it threw the minarets of the Temple of the Triune into stark silhouettes against the blazing sky. He wove quickly through the streets, and before long he was taking the steps to the temple, where Princess Zelda and Link were waiting for him.

Link, he was pleased to note, had come armed. She'd pulled a cloak over her bright kurta and sirwal, though he caught the glimmer of mail under the edge of the long shirt. A winged, violet hilt sat just over her left shoulder— the Blade of Evil's Bane, if the illustrations in the old texts were accurate. He couldn't read her expression under her veil, but her eyes were shining through the shaggy fringe of her pale hair.

Princess Zelda, on the other hand, looked far less pleased to see him. Her arms were folded across her chest, and she scowled sharply at him, though he ignored it, studying her gear and garb. She'd layered for the cold night air— a veil hung loose around her neck, and her travelling cloak was just as thick as Link's, if the fabric somewhat finer. The curved arm of a recurve bow arced over one of her shoulders, and a quiver of arrows was belted at her right thigh. A long-bladed knife occupied a sheath on her opposite hip.

It was nice to see her taking this seriously, even if she failed to respect him in negotiations.

"You're  _ late _ ," she groused.

"It's dusk," he replied. "I had an important discussion with Nabooru to finish. At any rate, it will be easier for the pair of you if we travel by night."

"Well we can't travel if we don't know where we're going, now can we?" she retorted.

"We  _ could _ , but we wouldn't get where you want to go," he replied. "Now, follow me."

He strode up through the columns at the top of the steps, but ducked around the veranda rather than entering the double-doors to the sanctum and took one of the many back-doors— this one leading down towards the archives. He had sent a message to the Rova earlier that day, asking them to meet him in the main room, and if they remembered, they would be waiting there. They’d left the torches in the stairwell lit— which couldn’t be accredited to the forgetfulness of a pair of elderly women. Everyone who worked in the temple— from the newest acolyte to the most ancient of Rova— feared a fire getting into the archives. So much knowledge had been lost three millennia before, when the Hylian army had razed Parapa to rubble, and mages and mundane alike feared another catastrophic loss.

He ignored the way the Hylians hesitated on the stairs behind him, descending into the dimness near the foot of the steps.

Another thick wooden door waited at the foot of the stairs, and he paused at the landing, waiting for Link and Zelda to join him before rapping on it with his knuckles.

“Aunt Koume? Aunt Kotake?” he called. “It’s Dragmire.”

His old name tasted like ashes on his tongue. He swallowed hard, biting his lip when there was no response from the other side. They were there—  _ surely _ they were there? Surely they wouldn’t have— 

He raised his hand to knock again— and the door flew open, leaving him stumbling back a step so it wouldn’t crash into him and bumping up against Link and Zelda behind him. An old woman, no taller than the center of his chest, stood on the other side, the sapphire diadem on her wrinkled brow level with where his fist had been. She peered up at him, her shockingly gold eyes bright, and cracked a wicked grin at the startled expression he wore.

“Running a little late, darling Mira?” she asked playfully.

Ganondorf couldn’t help pouting at her at least a little. “You  _ startled _ me, Aunt Kotake. I thought you two had already  _ left _ for the evening.”

Zelda scoffed quietly behind him, and Ganondorf felt his cheeks blaze with embarrassment and ducked his head to hide his blush. That earned him another chuckle— this one from Kotake, as the elderly woman raised herself on tiptoe to kiss his forehead.

“Is that our Mira, Kotake?” a voice called from somewhere deeper in the archives. 

That would be Koume, Kotake’s identical twin— and the other high priestess of the Triune. They kept the temple, the histories and the legends of the tribes of the Tantari Desert. They found young vai suited to scholarly work, to service in the name of the Goddesses, they trained young mages— he himself had been under their tutelage at the tender age of seven, when his power had first manifested. Much as it embarrassed him to admit it, he’d favored Koume’s teaching to Kotake’s— she, at least, had rarely rebuked him for his magical outbursts as a child, even as she’d sworn he would  _ never _ be allowed in her archives.

So much for that, he supposed.

“It’s me, Aunt Koume,” he called back. “I’ve...brought guests this evening.”

A groan echoed from inside, and there was a  _ thump _ — the Rova were both  _ spry _ old women, though they'd been young mages in his grandmother's day— and then Koume joined her twin at the door to the archives, her arms in their voluminous sleeves folded across her chest. She looked him up and down, then over his shoulder at Link and Zelda, and harrumphed.

"So, you’ve  _ finally _ brought your Hylians around, I see,” she said.

“ _ His _ Hylians?” Zelda said, her voice high with indignation.

_ Both _ of his teachers laughed at that one, heads thrown back, then turned as one and headed back into the archives.

"Spirited, isn't she Koume?"

"Oh  _ yes _ — though no less than one could expect of Hylia's line, Kotake!"

"And the other bears the Mark of Farore plain as day— "

"Yes, I think these  _ are _ our Dragmire's fated companions, don't you think?"

"To show up now of all times, they can be no  _ others _ , Koume."

“ _ What _ are you talking about?” Zelda demanded, storming past Ganondorf after them. Link hesitated a moment, then darted after her.

Ganondorf held himself still, uncertainty curling in his stomach.  _ Fated companions _ .

He sighed and set the thought aside for the moment. Koume and Kotake would have answers. He urged himself to move, following the Rova and the Hylians deeper into the archives.

The main room was paneled in wood, not stone— it kept the air humid enough to keep scrolls and books pliable enough to open and unroll without cracking and damaging delicate, ancient parchment— and was a veritable maze of shelves and racks, all packed with scrolls and tomes. Thousands of years of Gerudo knowledge was contained in this room, and the dozens of others weaving their way through the bedrock beneath the temple. Flameless lanterns lit the walls, bathing the space in a warm yellow glow. A trio of the movable ones sat clustered together on the table in the center of the room, around which the others had gathered, and he hurried to join them.

The table was broader than the span of his arms, and the whole time-polished surface of it was  _ covered _ in scrolls and open maps and ancient books open to various pages, so many he couldn't focus on one long enough to read it. Koume and Kotake were deep in conversation and bowed over another pair of maps, one more stylized than the other, and the landmarks were...strange. Parapa was in its place, but there were other settlements sprawled across the desert…

“—Ah, but we should tell our Mira the truth first, shouldn’t we, Kotake?” Koume said abruptly, looking up from the maps to fix Ganondorf with a piercing golden stare. Ganondorf froze under the intensity of that gaze.

“...Aunt Koume?” he asked quietly.

“We wanted to tell you earlier, darling,” Kotake said.

“We’ve known this was coming since your dreams first began—” Koume said.

“—Since the day of your  _ birth _ ,” Kotake corrected.

“—But your mother ordered us to keep quiet on the matter.”

“She thought it would stave off destiny until you were old enough to bear it.”

“She’d wanted to tell you  _ herself _ —”

“Tell me  _ what _ ?” Ganondorf asked, setting his palms flat on the table. “What have you been keeping from me, Aunt?”

“...It’s something to do with the Calamity, isn’t it?” Zelda said. Ganondorf turned to look at her. The Princess had fisted her hands in the sleeves of her kurta, and her eyes were tight and anxious.

Link nodded. “Dragmire told me about the dreams, and it sounds like the Sacred Flames we’ve been searching for,” she said in agreement.

Koume and Kotake glanced sidelong at each other, and Ganondorf clenched his hands into nervous fists.

At last, Kotake said, “ _ Calamity waxes _ —”

“— _ Calamity wanes _ ,” Koume agreed.

Zelda stiffened. “...That inscription was in the Temple of Time,” she said quietly. “How can you possibly know that?”

“We Rova keep the records of the People,” Kotake said.

“We watch the cycles of the world, over the thousands of years of their turning,” Koume said.

"And things repeat themselves, don't they?” said Kotake.

"Oh, they  _ do _ ,” Koume agreed.

"So the ones who watch the cycles know what one looks like.”

"And it looks like the daughter of a chieftain who bears the mark of Din's favor—”

“Who heralds the arrival of those marked by Nayru and Farore in turn—”

“But what does this have to do with the  _ Calamity _ ?” Zelda demanded, slamming her hands down onto the table.

“Patience, little vai,” Kotake said.

“It has everything to do with it,” said Koume. 

“When the Great Darkness rears his head once more, three chosen by the Golden Goddesses are destined to take up arms and stand against him, in all his forms,” Kotake said.

Koume nodded. “The stories of the People tell this tale over and over, across the millennia.”

Zelda scowled. “This isn’t the story they tell in Hyrule,” she huffed. “It has  _ always _ been the Princess Who Bears the Blood of the Goddess, and the Hero chosen by the Sword that Seals the Darkness. And  _ anyway _ , I’m not at all sure what your old tales have to do with  _ our  _ purpose— the Temple of Din’s Flame, which I  _ know _ lies somewhere in this desert!” Her small hands had clenched into fists, her shoulders gone tight— Ganondorf thought she might upend the table.

"What a  _ rude _ girl," Koume huffed.

"We're getting to that, daughter of Hylia," Kotake said. She tapped the map the pair of them had been bent over earlier, running a wizened hand over its unfurled surface. "But to go forward to the knowledge you desire, first we must go  _ back _ , to the knowledge you require."

"The Desert Colossus," Ganondorf said thoughtfully, reading the spot she'd tapped.

“Clever boy,” Koume said, reaching up to pinch his cheek. “The  _ Desert Colossus _ .”

“Three thousand years ago, it was the  _ heart _ of our worship,” Kotake said.

“...There was a Calamity three thousand years ago,” Link said. Ganondorf glanced sideways at her.

“Precisely,” Koume said. “Many of our records from the time are lost— the armies of Hyrule descended upon the Tantari Desert and razed our city, and the People fled into the Desert of Mysteries. To the Colossus.”

“Three thousand years ago, the Chosen of Din failed to appear,” Kotake said. “What records we have mention the Chosen of Nayru and the Chosen of Farore— your Princess and your Warrior— appearing to stand against Calamity, but the fate of Chosen of Din is lost to time.”

Koume reached over and squeezed Ganondorf’s hand.

“This,” she said quietly, “is why your mother asked us to keep your destiny from you. She feared losing you to it.”

Kotake nodded. “After Lady Barriara fell, we agreed that we would keep it from you until your fated companions arrived, so you  _ couldn’t _ be lost.”

Ganondorf bit his lip hard enough to taste blood and shook himself to keep from crying.

“...Thank you for telling me,” he murmured, then looked up and met Koume’s gaze. “...Now, please. Tell us what we need to do.”

Koume and Kotake glanced sideways at each other again, seeming to confer without words. Then Koume unrolled the second map, tapping at a site that— at a glance— seemed to correspond to the site of the Colossus on the first one.

“The temple you seek is at a site now known as Arbiter’s Grounds,” she said. 

“At this moment, the Colossus sleeps beneath the sands of the Desert of Mysteries,” Kotake said. “The mechanism by which she is raised and lowered—”

“—Requires the precise application of electricity to operate,” said Koume.

Ganondorf sighed quietly. “That means me, I suppose.”

“...Why was it buried in the first place?” Zelda asked. Her head had tilted curiously, allowing her long, dark braid to fall forward over her shoulder.

“We cannot be certain,” Koume said.

“The records are lost,” Kotake agreed. “We know it has been raised twice in the intervening time.”

“The first is apocryphal,” Koume said. “The record describes the Sage Nabooru descending into the Colossus to seal a Being of Malice in the innermost sanctum, to protect the People from the beast’s wrath.”

“The  _ second _ is recorded,” Kotake said. “Under the reign of King Malena, two millennia ago, the Colossus was raised in order to recover a number of precious artifacts, the War Crown among them.”

Ganondorf’s hands twitched, and he dropped them to his sides to keep from touching his forehead, where the War Crown had sat nearly every day since it had called him from its place in the Temple.

“Why sink it again afterwards?” Link asked.

“The Rova of the time recorded the vai who braved its depths as calling it a ‘place of horror’,” Koume said.

“They did  _ not _ explain why,” Kotake added.

“...And this is the location of Din’s Flame,” Ganondorf said quietly. He felt almost dizzy— like the world had begun to spin too quickly, leaving him reeling in place.

“Yes,” Koume said. Her eyes, when he met her gaze, had gone dark.

He exhaled, then sank to his knees and bowed his head, closing his eyes.

“...Then, Most Honored Rova, may I ask a blessing upon this quest?”

A hand settled atop his head. He waited.

“May the eyes of the Triune be upon you and your companions,” Koume said above him.

“May Din’s strength smooth the path before you,” Kotake said. Fabric rustled nearby.

“May Nayru’s wisdom guide you, as an arrow to the target.”

“And may Farore’s courage gird you, no matter what foes stand in your way.”

The hand lifted from his head, and Koume said quietly, “Go in faith, and return to us in victory.”

“I will,” Ganondorf whispered in response. Then he stood, inclining his head to each of the Rova in turn, before returning his attention to the Hylians. “Come. We should make for the Colossus immediately.”

And then he strode past them, without another word, leaving the archive behind him. He could hear Link and Zelda scrambling after him, though their footsteps caught up quickly. Halfway up the stairs, Zelda pushed up to take the steps beside him.

“You’re in an awful hurry,” she huffed. “They said something that got you all upset, didn’t they?”

“You’d think it’s a lot to take in, wouldn’t you,” he said dryly. “Look, the sooner we get to that temple, the sooner I know for  _ certain _ what it is I’ve been dreaming about— and the sooner you can stop fucking around with the treaty so we can actually get it over with.”

“Well I’m  _ sorry _ for expecting you to be an obstructionist after  _ insisting _ Link and I be accompanied by a guard everywhere outside of town,” she snapped back.

Ganondorf shot her a glare. “And I’m sorry for trying to keep you from getting murdered or wandering off into the desert unprepared and dying of heatstroke, and your  _ father _ using it as an excuse to start a war.”

“Can you two  _ please _ stop picking at each other?” Link said, pressing up on Ganondorf’s other side as they reached the top of the stairs. “ _ I _ don’t want to have to explain to anyone why the Princess of Hyrule and the King of the Gerudo strangled each other over a dumb argument. We’re going to the Temple now, so it’s fine.”

Zelda shot Ganondorf a dirty look, and he turned so Link couldn’t see it and stuck out his tongue at her in response, just petty enough to act like a twelve-year-old instead of a grown adult. The Princess blew a raspberry at him in reply, but didn’t say another word as he led them towards the western wall. The temple grounds were silent and empty, at this time of evening, though he knew that once the moon had fully risen the acolytes would emerge to do what maintenance could not be done by daylight. As it was, it was quiet enough that no one saw them as he led the Hylians to the tiny western gate, unlocking the bolts with a flick of his wrist and the merest flicker of lightning. He pushed it open, then stepped aside, gesturing towards it.

The open desert waited for them on the other side.

“I hadn’t realized there was a gate here,” Zelda said softly as she passed through.

“It’s one of our better-kept secrets,” Ganondorf replied.

He let Link pass as well, then ducked through and shut the gate behind them. He locked the bolts again, then pressed his palm against it, feeling for the skeins of magic woven into the wood and the stone of the wall. The magic  _ tugged _ , and he pulled back, and a moment later the wood beneath his hand rippled, the illusion of stone settling across it. Link whistled softly behind him.

When he turned around, the short Hylian had lifted the metallic tablet strapped at her side and was inspecting it thoughtfully. The Sheikah eye on the back of it seemed to wink at him, and Ganondorf suppressed a shiver. Ancient Sheikah technology always set him on edge— it was why Nabooru was slated to pilot Vah Naboris should the need arise, rather than him.

“The map says Arbiter’s Grounds is to the southwest of us, but it’s a long way away,” Link said, and looked up at him. “How are we planning to get there?”

“By sand seal,” Ganondorf replied, and shrugged his shield off his back. “I thought that would be obvious.”

“What?!” Zelda yelped. “You should have— but Link and I don’t know how to ride a sand seal!”

“Have either of you been shield-surfing before?” Ganondorf asked.

The two Hylians exchanged looks, and after a moment, Link nodded.

“Well, I haven’t,” Zelda huffed.

“Then you’ll ride with me,” Ganondorf said, and turned to one of the rock outcroppings outside the walls. 

Gerudo warriors often stashed coils of rope there for sand seal-surfing, and sand seals usually congregated there— none of the free-roaming ones were truly wild, but kept loose to acclimate them to the dangers of the Tantari Desert. And, sure enough, a pair of them had huddled up behind the rocks for the evening. They roused when he clucked his tongue at them, barking in response, and he retrieved the ropes and lashed them through the rings pierced through the hard keratin ridges that ran down the center of the massive animals’ backs.

Sand crunched behind him, and when Ganondorf turned around, the Hylians stood behind him. Zelda’s arms were folded across her chest, and she shot him a ferocious glower.

“Now wait just a second,” she snapped. “I am  _ not _ riding with you. I don’t trust you, and  _ Link _ is my guard— I would feel safer with hi—  _ her _ .”

Ganondorf raised both eyebrows at her. “Princess, pardon my frankness, but I have  _ never _ met someone so eager to eat sand before.”

Zelda’s jaw dropped. “I— well, I— ”

“He has a point,” Link said quietly. “I don’t know how well I’ll be able to balance with just  _ me _ on the shield…” She shot Ganondorf a quick glance, then took Zelda’s hand and pressed it to her lips through her veil. “I don’t want to see you hurt, Zelda.”

Zelda’s pale cheeks and ears blushed vibrantly crimson, and Ganondorf bit his lip to keep from laughing or saying something he might regret. It was  _ almost _ enough to make her endearing, and...well, he couldn’t blame her, either.

“I— alright,” Zelda stammered, and pulled her hand back. “I  _ suppose _ I can ride with him.”

Ganondorf set his shield down, holding the rope coiled loosely in his hand, and waved Zelda over. “Set your feet your shoulders’ width apart, close to the center of the shield,” he said. “And stay close to me. As long as you shift your weight with mine, we should avoid falling on our faces.”

Zelda huffed at him, but did as instructed. Ganondorf stepped on behind her then, tossed the second rope to Link, and lashed the one he kept around them, loosely enough not to hurt either of them, but tightly enough to not slip free of by accident. The princess leaned back against him, her whole body tense, and Ganondorf squeezed her shoulder gently before grasping the rope in front of them.

“You’ll be alright,” he said, for her ears alone. “I promise, I will not let you fall.”

He glanced over at Link, who finished securing the rope about her waist and gave him a thumbs-up, and nodded in response. Then he shifted his weight backwards, flicked the rope, and whooped at the sand seal.

Zelda fell back against him with a shriek as the seal surged forward, and Ganondorf shifted his weight to accommodate for hers, bracing himself against the rope. Link whooped behind them, then yelped, and a moment later the second seal surged up beside them, cutting through the sand like water. Ganondorf met her eyes, and Link nodded and waved with her free hand. Zelda waved back.

Ganondorf left them to it, glancing up at the sky to gauge their heading, then shifted his weight again, swinging them out to the right side of the seal, which sensed the change in drag and turned its bearing to the southwest. He whooped again, and the seal barked in response, surging forward again, faster now. Link cut across behind them, whooping back as she caught up, and after a quick glance at the Hylian confirmed she had her balance, Ganondorf returned his attention to the desert before them.

The western desert was flatter than the land to the east of Parapa, less riddled with rocky outcroppings, save a few locations deeper in, though the whole of it was spotted with ruins. Ganondorf knew it well— he’d spent his youth seal-surfing amongst the dunes and exploring the more accessible ruins with Nabooru at his side— but somehow this felt different from any midnight expedition before. The night air was charged with energy. A west wind was blowing, and he tugged up the hood of his cloak with his free hand to keep the sand out of his eyes. Zelda was a warm weight against his chest and stomach— she’d given up trying to hold her own and settled against him, trusting him. Something hot sparked up under his breastbone, warming him against the chill wind.

They coasted along the side of a dune, and Ganondorf glanced skyward again, referencing the stars against the horizon. Their heading was right— and, sure enough, a trio of upthrust rocks met them on the other side of the dune. Beyond them, the broken tops of pillars scraped at the skyline. Ganondorf shifted his weight again, guiding the seal around the southern side of the outcroppings— last he’d heard, a nest of lizalfos had occupied the northern point of the second, and he didn’t fancy tangling with them in the dark. 

And slowly, slowly, the half-buried pillars that marked the Arbiter’s Grounds ruin came clearly into view.

He slowed the sand seal to a stop, then stepped off the shield to steady himself and Zelda before untying the rope. Link came to a clumsier stop beside them, stumbling and falling on her side in the sand, then rolled back upright and began freeing herself as well. The sand seals continued to bark for a minute, but quickly fell silent.

Far too quickly. And the silence was  _ loud _ , unsettlingly so. If Ganondorf had thought the air felt charged before, it fairly crackled with energy now— the only thing that kept him from suspecting a marauding lizalfos or Yiga was that the air still smelled cool and desert-fresh, with no lizard-stench or smell of ozone, and no cloying incense to meet his nose. He sighed and straightened his cloak, then untied the rope from the ring on the sand seal’s back and looped it through his belt for safekeeping. A quick glance at Link said she had done the same.

“Alright, so where’s the mechanism to raise the temple?” Zelda asked. She’d folded her arms again impatiently.

“I’m...not sure,” Ganondorf said. “I suspect it’s at the base of one of these pillars, where it would be easier to find, but I’m not sure  _ which _ …”

“What are we looking for?” Link asked.

Ganondorf hesitated— he wasn’t quite certain, but when he opened his mouth to say so, something else came out. “It should be an orb, made of metal, and large enough to fit in my cupped hands,” he said, holding them out to illustrate. “It will probably be embedded  _ in _ the pillar itself, in an alcove or the like, for ease of access.”

“Then let’s look,” Link said. She hesitated, then reached up and tugged at her veil. “And...will you be alright if I pull this down?”

“You’re outside Parapa, I don’t see why not,” Ganondorf said. “Would you like me to keep referring to you as ‘she’, or do you prefer…?”

“He, please,” Link said, and pulled his veil down.

Ganondorf couldn’t keep his jaw from dropping.

He’d seen Hylian men before, of course— every young Gerudo vai snuck off to the bazaar in the Ranel Oasis, and he’d been no exception— but Link did not look like most Hylian men he’d met. The ones he’d seen had been much older, heavyset and shifty-eyed in a way that made him want to hide himself, and none of them had appealed, but Link looked more like a Hylian vai, or one of the vai other Hylians would sometimes insist were voe. He was  _ pretty _ , with high, arched cheekbones and an upturned mouth. A set of scars arced down one cheek, raised and dark against his fair skin, and Ganondorf traced them down his neck to where they vanished under his collar, his mouth drier than the sands.

He looked away immediately, hiding his blush.

“—I’m going to go check the southern set of pillars,” he said, pointing towards them. “You two check the northern ones, it’ll be faster that way.”

He didn’t wait for an answer, kicking up sand in his haste to reach the nearest pillar before either of them could stop it, and settled to a crouch at its base. The sand was chilled through the fine linen of his sirwal, but he ignored it, studying the pillar itself. Its sandstone face was pocked and windworn, the carvings faded with time and abuse. He moved around to the back, spotting a depression in the surface— one which proved to be the upper part of an opening to an alcove.

Exactly what he had expected.

He tasted copper on the roof of his mouth.

“Have you found anything?” a voice asked behind him— Zelda’s voice. The moon cast silver across the dark of her hair and threw her eyes into shadow, when he turned to glare at her over his shoulder.

“I  _ just _ started looking,” he said, and returned his attention to the alcove, scooping the sand out of the way with his hands. “Why are you  _ here _ , rather than on the north side as I suggested?”

“There’s a rune on the Sheikah Slate which allows the user to detect metal,” Zelda said. “Link doesn’t need my help— knowing him, he’ll cover the north side faster than the two of us would the south.”

Her speech was easier— referring to Link as a woman must have been a hardship for her, and yet it seemed odd to him— Link hadn’t appeared  _ uncomfortable _ passing as a vai.

He set the thought aside, humming in response. “And are you intending to dig, your highness?”

“I’m recording information, thank you,” Zelda replied. “The last temple was on the surface, and we have very few records in Hyrule of the mechanisms to raise structures like a temple— or a shrine or a tower, for that matter. There are theories among the Sheikah that amber is involved somehow, but we don’t have enough  _ functioning _ pieces of ancient technology to tell.”

Ganondorf scooped aside another handful of sand, tossing it back at her boots. “This is a  _ Gerudo _ temple,” he huffed. “There won’t be any of your Sheikah technology here— our best work is through lightning, and any gems used to amplify power here will be—”

His hand struck something on his next scoop, something hard and smooth and cold, and he hurried his pace, revealing an orb of polished stone that shone pale as gold in the moonlight. He dug further— a metal cup held the orb, a shaft like the stem of an imported Hylian wine glass vanished down into the sandstone of the base of the alcove.

“...Topaz,” he finished, and met Zelda’s gaze.

“That does  _ not _ seem to be a metal ball the size of your cupped hands,” she said wryly.

“No,” he replied. “This is something different...but connected, I think.”

“Connected  _ how _ ?”

“They...I believe they are part of the mechanism to raise the temple. If I were to hazard a guess, there will be one of these at the base of each pillar.”

“Except for the one with the  _ metal _ orb.”

“ _ Precisely _ .”

“Zelda! Dragmire!” Link shouted, and Ganondorf’s head snapped up, turning towards the other Hylian.

Link stood a bit away from the pillars, to the east of the northern pair and equidistant between them and the southern pair. He’d dug a hole in the sand there, and he waved his arms over his head, as if trying to get their attention.

“Have you found it?” Ganondorf called back.

“It’s over here!” Link said. “There’s a flat platform here— and steps, but they’re buried.”

Ganondorf nodded and stood, brushing the sand from his knees. It made sense; the sand would have drifted over the millennia and buried the mechanisms. Sand tended to do that. He hurried to Link’s side, ignoring Zelda’s indignant squeak behind him as he abandoned her, and knelt again at the edge of the hole Link had dug.

Sure enough, dark metal gleamed at the bottom. An orb, roughly the size of his cupped hands, every inch of it engraved with spiralling patterns. A metal stem sank into the sand from the base. The back of Ganondorf’s neck prickled, the small, fine hairs there standing on end.

The dark surface of that orb was...nearly familiar, and yet not— where had he seen it before?

“Is that it?” Link asked.

“Yes,” Ganondorf said curtly. He steeled himself and reached down, placing both hands flat against the orb.

It was warm under his palms, as if it had lain in the last rays of the evening sun the moment before rather than resting under half a foot of night-cold sand.

Or as if another person had just taken their hands off it.

He closed his eyes and reached, feeling the tide of energy swirl up around him, and  _ reeled _ .

“There’s...something down there,” he said softly.

It was like peering into shadowed glass, or the deeper waters of the Ranel Oasis. Dark and deeper and pooling with movement, and in the heart of the space before him...an upwelling. Light. Heat. Something slow and deep and ancient, not a living being; like having his finger on the pulse of the land. And something else, too, not the pulse. Something quicker, colder.

Something that knew he was there.

The taste of copper flooded his mouth.

“Dragmire?” Zelda asked behind him, and he shook himself and looked up at her.

“Sorry,” he said. “I got distracted. There’s something  _ enormous _ in that temple, the mechanism resonates with it.”

“But can you  _ raise _ it?” she asked.

He hesitated, mindful of the  _ awareness _ of the thing in the depths.

“I can,” he said. “You and Link should stand back; I don’t want to kill someone with a stray bolt.”

Zelda’s eyes widened, and Link went ashen in the moonlight, and they both stepped back away from him, moving behind and away from them. He listened to their boots on the sand, waiting, and when they’d faded enough he closed his eyes again.

He tuned out the vastness in the deep, focusing on the orb beneath his palms. There was a resonance— five points before him in the sand, topaz nodes linking the mechanism to itself, to something deeper below. The magic in it tugged at him, and he pulled back.

Most Gerudo mages, when they called lightning, called it down from the sky. Koume and Kotake had taught him otherwise. Ozone flooded his nose, the taste of it on his tongue. The first flicker of electricity snapped down the length of his braid, whipping it out behind him like a striking serpent. Lightning crackled across his collarbone, down the length of his arms. His diadem warmed on his brow.

He  _ pulled _ .

A roar built in his ears. The energy snapped and rippled through him and down and down, snapping out to his left and his right. The first nodes flared. Someone behind him shrieked. He tuned it out. The next nodes flared, then snapped, the circuit connected. The stone beneath his knees shuddered. He  _ pulled _ .

The vastness beneath him shifted, rising. He saw again, in dark glass. The pulse beneath him rose, centered between five shining points of lightning before him. His hands were dim shadows, holding the loop; the lightning coursed through and from him. He shook with effort, muscles wound taut. Straining against the load of the Colossus.

And then, abruptly, the circuit broke.

The rumbling died.

He fell forward, bracing his hands against the front of the hole, his arms quivering under his weight. He gasped, ragged and breathless, trying to catch his breath. There was a coolness across his face, the impression of shadow over his eyelids.

A hand landed on his back. “Are you alright?” Link asked.

Ganondorf opened his eyes and looked up, meeting Link’s gaze. The Hylian’s fair brows were creased with concern, and there was sand in his hair and on his shoulders.

“I’m alright,” he replied. “Just a moment.” His arms were still shaking; he didn’t fancy his chances of staying upright if he decided to stand.

And then he looked past Link, and his jaw dropped. A vast form had risen before him, an enormous statue graven in pale sandstone, and his first thought was of the Seven Heroines in the eastern desert— but no, this woman was seated, her legs folded lotus before her. Her elbows rested on her knees, palms upraised as if to cup the sun and moon, and her eyes were closed, her features serene.

And, in the gap where her shins crossed in front of her, a dark door loomed.

“The Colossus,” he whispered.

“I can’t believe you lifted it,” Zelda said behind him, and Ganondorf looked back over his shoulder at her. The Hylian princess had folded her arms across her chest, but her expression was begrudgingly impressed. “It’s  _ enormous _ .”

“It’s a Temple,” Ganondorf replied. “The thing you two are looking for is...beneath it, I believe. Inside, but below.” It had certainly  _ felt _ deep.

Or maybe it was the cold awareness that he had felt, lying in wait.

“Thank you,” Link said. The hand on his back shifted to his shoulder, and Link squeezed. “We really couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You can return to Gerudo Town now, if you like,” Zelda said. Her tone was hesitant, though, and her eyes were shadowed when she moved to stand beside Link.

Ganondorf shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere but into the Colossus,” he said.

“You  _ really _ don’t need to,” Zelda said.

“No, I’m coming,” he said. “The Rova said I bear the mark of Din. This is  _ Din’s _ Temple, and I raised it, and I am  _ coming in there _ whether you approve or not,  _ Zelda _ .”

Zelda’s face pinched like she’d bitten an unripe voltfruit.

Link’s, on the other hand, brightened. “The last temple was a lot of close-quarters combat,” he said. “We’ll be grateful for your swords once we’re inside.”

“So it’s settled?” Ganondorf asked.

Zelda scowled, but nodded, and Link beamed, and Ganondorf reached up, letting Link pull him to his feet.

Then they turned towards the temple and, as one, made their way toward the door.


	5. Chapter 4: Where Din's Flame Sleeps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Once again, we've got another long chapter here--this one topped out over 9k--so like I said last chapter, if you've got somewhere to be tomorrow morning, feel free to put the fic down.
> 
> Just as a note: _this_ is the (first) chapter that earns the gore/body horror warnings, for a fight scene about halfway through. If you'd prefer to skip it, the scene begins at the line "The room before them was full of Gerudo." and ends at the paragraph beginning "When the light faded, Ganondorf uncurled carefully, raising his head from the cradle of his arms."

_True power lies within the land;_

_A Prince extends his blazing hand_

_Where Din’s Flame sleeps beneath the sand._

* * *

Darkness fell like a shroud the moment they passed the threshold of the temple. Cold came with it, the chill and damp of a cavern, and Ganondorf pulled his cloak more tightly around himself, trying to ward it off. His bootsteps rang out in the silent space, echoing off the walls and a ceiling lost above him in the gloom, and he tilted his head back, squinting up into the blackness. There was a smell in the air, under the scent of damp— something acrid, and faintly rotten— and he curled his lip in distaste.

“...It’s darker than I expected in here,” Zelda said from somewhere behind him. “And...Link, you smell that too, right?”

“Smells like Malice,” said Link. 

His voice issued from behind Ganondorf’s left shoulder, and the scuff of leather boots on the stone floor signalled his approach. Ganondorf peered back at him, but the Hylian was little more than a dim silhouette in the faint light from the doorway. His pale eyes seemed to glitter, though, and Ganondorf swallowed uncomfortably.

“...What’s this _malice_?” he asked.

“According to my grandmother, it’s an emanation from Calamity itself,” Zelda said, and Ganondorf looked over his other shoulder at her. “It’s this...viscous, acidic substance that manifests in places the Calamity has touched. It manifests body parts— eyes are the most common, she called them the Dark Watchers— it reanimates monsters that fall into it...sometimes it’s just a pool of seemingly inert _substance_ , but don’t be fooled. It destroys any living thing that falls into it— it eats stone and steel, and scars the very earth beneath it.”

Her silhouette shuddered.

“It was in the Temple of Farore’s Flame, too,” Link added. “Zelda can purify it, but—”

“—It’s taxing,” Zelda said. “I must draw on Hylia’s power to dispel it, but I can’t do it too often or it wears me out. And…”

“Last time, it drew all the monsters in the area to us,” Link said.

“And if we can smell it from the temple’s entrance…” Ganondorf said cautiously, and dropped his hand to the hilt of his scimitar, thumbing the guard for comfort.

“Then there must be a _lot_ of Malice deeper in,” Zelda said grimly. “Link, do you still have that torch in the Slate? I don’t want anything to sneak up on us in the dark.”

“Just a second,” Link said.

Fabric rustled in the dark, and Ganondorf turned fully to face the Hylians— just in time to be blinded by a brilliant flash of blue light. He shook his head, blinking spots from his eyes, and squinted at Link, who was lit by the blue rectangle of the Sheikah tablet he held. His fingers darted across the screen, and then he tapped at something, and— 

There was a torch in Link’s free hand.

“ _How_ — ?” he began.

“Oh, it’s _fascinating_ ,” Zelda said, and took the torch from Link, brandishing it excitedly. “Apparently, the ancient Sheikah were capable of folding space _just_ enough to create what’s essentially an extradimensional pack, accessible via icons on the Slate. We _still_ don’t know how they could possibly have done it, but they _did_.”

“...So now we have a torch,” Ganondorf said flatly.

“So now we have a torch,” Link said.

“Care to light it for us, Dragmire?” Zelda asked, and held it out with the head pointed at him. 

Ganondorf could smell the oil-soaked rags wrapping the end, so it was real enough, and he shrugged reluctantly and snapped his fingers, sparks leaping from them and catching the head instantly. The tug was notable this time, and he swayed a moment before steadying himself.

“You alright?” That was Link, and the Hylian had extended a hand as if to steady him before thinking better of it. His brows pinched in concern.

“Raising the temple....took more of a toll than I had anticipated,” Ganondorf said. “It’ll take me a little while to recover from that— I’ve never done such a large working before, much less alone.”

Zelda made a sound that might have been a groan, if it had been any louder. “Guess we _won’t_ be able to count on your magic from here forward.”

“I didn’t say _that_ , I said it would take some time to recover. Working magic like what I did outside is _taxing_ , as drawing on your goddess’s power is for you,” Ganondorf retorted, shooting her a glare. His fingernails dug into his palm.

“Zelda,” Link said quietly, and Zelda— whose mouth had opened to reply, no doubt with another biting retort— fell quiet, her shoulders slumping. “It’s fine. We have a second torch, we’re all armed, and we handled the gatekeeper in the _last_ temple without magic.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Zelda said quietly.

“...Gatekeeper?” Ganondorf said warily.

Link and Zelda exchanged a look, and the Princess’s hand tightened on the haft of the torch.

Link exhaled quietly, then said, “The last temple had this...monster guarding the Chamber of Farore’s Flame. We checked Zelda’s grandmother’s research on temples, and—”

“—It’s theorized that Calamity sets guards to block the Hero from reaching his goals,” Zelda said. “Seeing as there’s evidence of Calamity’s rising once again, and there was a gatekeeper in the _last_ temple, it’s safe to assume there will be another monster waiting for us in the depths.”

Ganondorf grimaced. The cold presence beneath the sand, when he had raised the temple, was still fresh in his mind. It had sensed him— _seen_ him, he was sure of it.

If that was the gatekeeper, it would be waiting for them.

“...Hopefully we’ll have enough time before we face it for my power to return,” he said. “Link, that second torch?”

“Right,” Link said, and tapped at the Slate again.

A moment later he was holding a second torch, which he offered to Ganondorf. The wood was cool under his palm, smooth and even-grained, and the smell of the oil was more pungent than the other’s had been. He held it out to press the head against Zelda’s torch, waiting until it caught before pulling it away to hold aloft, casting a broader circle of light than Zelda’s torch did.

The room stretched far beyond the glow, even with the light thrown more broadly, and the ceiling was still lost in shadow, but Ganondorf drank in what he could see eagerly. The floor was covered in a fine layer of sand, obscuring the pavers covering it— he’d expected a mosaic, but then, the Temple of the Triune had its entrance closed to the elements, not open to the deep desert. His torch caught the side of a column in its glow, reflecting off the red and orange tiles that wound their way up to where darkness claimed it once again. He recognized the pattern, an invocation of fire that symbolized the flaming arms of the goddess Din in the act of creating the earth. If this temple was like the Temple of the Triune, there would be a second pillar past it, blue for Nayru setting the world in order, and then a third as green as Farore’s living breath.

“Well?” Zelda asked.

“It’s a temple,” Ganondorf said.

“I meant the mosaic,” she replied.

Ganondorf shrugged. “Temple entrances have three pairs of pillars, one for each member of the Triune. They uphold the roof as the goddesses uphold the world.”

“Ah. And how is a temple like this usually laid out?” she asked.

“There should be stairs at the far end of this room, and a landing at the top,” Ganondorf said, and strode forward, earning a yelp as she hurried forward to keep pace. His torch lit Nayru’s pillar, as he had expected— though the mosaic pattern was damaged, crumbling away in places to bare the stone of the pillar beneath. “On that landing, there will be two doors, one on either side, and a third in the center leading to the sanctum.”

“That seems too easy,” Link said quietly. “The sanctum of Farore’s Flame was deep underground and through a maze of traps.”

A chill ran down Ganondorf’s spine, like ice down the back of his kurta. “I...believe this one will be so, as well. The sanctum of a temple is for worship by the people— the most sacred places will be underground.”

“So which door is it, left or right?” Zelda asked.

“In the Temple of the Triune, the door on the right brings you to the halls of the acolytes and the offices of the Rova, and the door on the left leads you to the archives,” Ganondorf said. “If the Desert Colossus is laid out the same, we should take the left door and follow it down.”

“I wish we had a map,” Link muttered.

“The last temple was largely old Sheikah architecture,” Zelda said, before Ganondorf could ask. “They worked their technology into the whole edifice— there was a terminal in the first room that registered the Slate and allowed Link and I to download a map of the whole building. I suppose there won’t be anything like that in here.”

“No,” Ganondorf agreed. “And most of the mechanisms to operate this place will rely on electri— what in _Din’s name_?!”

The third pillar had come into view, and something was...wrong about it. The green still showed in scattered patches, but the whole of the base was _littered_ with shards of emerald tile. Thick vines of black and magenta curled down from the ceiling, spreading against the pale stone of the pillar, and _pulsating_ with each flicker of the torchlight. The stench hit him at that moment, burning his throat like bile, and Ganondorf pulled the cowl of his cloak up to cover his nose. Link retched behind him, and Zelda gagged violently, as if she were about to vomit.

“ _Goddess_ —” the princess choked out.

“That’s Malice,” Link said, sounding strangled. “It shouldn’t be this far up.”

Ganondorf held the torch out, taking a cautious step closer to inspect it. The tendrils of Malice quivered and pulsated, seeming to curl towards him, and at that moment a hand closed on his wrist to pull him back.

“What are you _doing_?” Zelda hissed. “Didn’t you listen earlier? It’ll burn you if you touch it.”

“It looks like it’s...alive,” Ganondorf said quietly.

“Then _definitely_ don’t touch it,” she replied.

“Do either of you see an eye?” Link asked from behind him, and when Zelda tugged at his wrist again Ganondorf let himself be pulled back, away from the tainted column. He held his torch as high as he could, peering up into the gloom.

“...Nothing,” he said.

“Then we’d better not disturb it,” Zelda said. She hadn’t let go of his wrist either, he noted, the blunt crescents of her nails digging into his skin through the fabric of his sleeve. “If it’s in the ceiling, for all we know the Malice could be holding this whole place together.”

Link sucked in a breath, hissing unsettlingly between his teeth, and Ganondorf took another step away from the pillar. Something crackled beneath his boots— when he looked down, green shards glittered against the pale stone of the floor.

“...You’re right,” he said quietly. “We should keep moving. This place feels...wrong.”

 _Heavy_ , he wanted to say. As if the blackness between them and the ceiling would press down and crush them at any moment.

He took as deep a breath as he could without the stench of the Malice choking him, steeling himself, and stepped forward again, towards the far end of the room. Zelda kept pace with him, refusing to relinquish her grip on his arm, but he let her keep it. The warmth of her hand was somehow reassuring. Link’s footsteps stayed behind them, and stayed close, drawing near on Ganondorf’s left as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Here were the mosaics he had been expecting, swirling up the steps in ribbons of gold, of red and blue and green, spraying out at the edges like the front edge of a sandstorm. Ganondorf hurried up them, pausing at the top and hefting his torch higher. It was as he’d expected— a door across from them at the center of the wall, a door to the left, and a door to the right.

The Malice was there too. The door leading to the sanctum bulged outwards, the ancient wood too cracked and laced with dry rot to hold against the weight of the substance. Fingers of it curled through the gap beneath the door, oozing out around the sides and pulsing thickly through every weakness in the wood. Bile stung the back of Ganondorf’s throat again, and he turned his gaze away, to the door to the right. That one was in better condition, hanging straight on its hinges, and there was a sconce beside it where a torch should go, empty and rusted. 

He nearly moved towards it, but there was— a whisper. A scrape. Leather on stone.

“You hear it too?” Zelda whispered.

“There’s something on the other side of that door,” he whispered back.

“Hope it doesn’t know how to _open_ that door,” Link murmured.

“...You said the door to the right leads to the acolytes’ halls, right?” Zelda asked.

Another scrape, and a low, metallic grating.

“Yes,” Ganondorf breathed. He dared not raise his voice. His palm on the torch was slick with sweat; he adjusted his grip to hold it better.

“Then most of the people who were _here_ when the temple sank—” Link began.

Ganondorf pulled his hand free of Zelda’s and put it over his mouth to silence him. There was another scrape, a _shuffle_.

Something thumped against the door.

“It knows we’re here,” he whispered in Link’s ear, and the Hylian went still.

“What do we do?” Zelda whispered back.

Another thump. The door juddered on its hinges, shedding flakes of rust.

Ganondorf released Link and took hold of Zelda’s shoulder, moving her behind him, towards the left-hand door. “Now we go through the _other_ door, and pray there isn’t something quieter behind it.”

Before any of them could move, there was a hideous squeal of metal on stone from the other side of the right-hand door. A moment of silence. Ganondorf’s hands clenched on the hilts of his scimitars, his breath fast and ragged.

The ancient wood _shattered_ when the blow fell, splitting and cracking under the force of the rusted scimitar. It caught on the crossbeam halfway down and stilled. Juddered. Slid back an inch into the darkness behind, and through the broken board Ganondorf got a glimpse of dulled enamel armor. A yellow eye glowing in the darkness.

" _Move_!" he shouted, and shoved at the Hylians.

Zelda gave a stifled shriek as Link caught her wrist and tugged, and Ganondorf backpedalled after them, eyes fixed on the broken door. The rusted scimitar jerked back another inch, caught again in the old wood.

" _Got_ it!" Link hissed from behind him. Rusty hinges _screamed_ in protest, and a blast of cold, musty air struck Ganondorf in the back as the door behind him opened. 

Zelda's hand closed on his wrist again, tugging insistently. He took a step back, and then another, stumbling over the threshold as the scimitar jerked free and vanished into the darkness. Again, the eye shone out behind the broken door. Another dragging scrape— 

Link slammed the door shut behind him and grabbed his other arm, towing him away from it. Ganondorf turned, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end at putting his back to the door, and hefted his torch higher, looking down at the Hylians. Zelda's face had gone pale as ash, her grip on his wrist slicked with sweat, and Link didn't look much better. The corridor behind them was narrow, pale stone leading to a dead-end at a wall— no, there were steps there, going down.

"What in Hylia's name _was_ that?" Zelda demanded. Her voice quavered despite it, and he couldn’t help shifting to run his thumb over the back of her hand, trying for comfort.

"—I don't know," he said, when he could manage it, glancing back at the door behind them. 

The air was silent. Dead.

"Did you see anything?" Link asked.

"...The sword was of Gerudo make," Ganondorf replied. "That was all. I— it's too dark."

"Of course," Zelda muttered. "...Question is, will it keep coming after us?"

"If it can still hear us, it will come," Ganondorf said quietly. He glanced back at the door, ears straining against the silence.

He was rewarded with another muffled scrape.

“Lovely,” Link said. “Let’s just….get away from the door, go down the stairs into the Malice basement, and hope it doesn’t follow us.”

“Let’s hope there aren’t more of them down there,” Zelda said darkly.

Then she hefted her torch a little higher and strode towards the stairs, leaving Link and Ganondorf behind her. 

Ganondorf met Link's eyes a moment— they'd gone wide, pupils drawn tight in fear— and then reached down and caught his forearm, leading him after Zelda. The princess had reached the stairs by that point and waited impatiently for them, tapping a boot on the floor. Her torchlight cascaded down into the dark below, reflecting dimly off the dusty stone of the steps before being swallowed up by the gloom. The smell of Malice was stronger here, and underlaid with a scent of rot that nearly made Ganondorf gag. _Wet_ rot, not dry— uncommon in the desert, where the sand and sun stripped the moisture from the dead.

Assuming there was enough body left to strip the moisture _from_.

"...At least the steps should hold us," Link said.

"So which of us is going first?" Zelda asked. "I _don't_ think it should be me— bows aren't suited to close-quarters combat, and if something down there catches us, we'll want someone who can handle it."

"...I can," Ganondorf said, and stepped forward. Link stepped aside, letting him move through, up to the top step. The blackness at the bottom looked even more impenetrable, and as Ganondorf peered into it, he caught a glimpse of magenta sparks swirling up out of the depths. "...I know how temples are laid out, and of the three of us, I'll have the best reach if anything comes up after us."

"You want me to take the torch?" Link asked.

Ganondorf passed it to him wordlessly, then stepped down onto the first stair. They were solid under his feet, but his guts still clenched uncomfortably. He took the next step, and Zelda's boots tapped on the one behind him, slightly weightier than Link's as he took her place on the uppermost step. The scent was stronger still on the next step, and the one after that, even as the blackness below receded, thrust back by the torches.

By the fifth step his knees had gone weak and wobbling, and he braced himself against the left-hand wall, palm against the cool, gritty sandstone. It felt almost wet under his hand— but maybe that was just sweat, or just the chill. The Hylians came to a stop behind him, and for a moment there was silence, save for their breathing.

His lungs wouldn’t expand.

“Are you alright?” Zelda asked. Her voice was quiet, tight.

“...I need to sit down,” Ganondorf said, and a moment later his knees gave way beneath him. He nearly collided with Zelda on the way down, slamming hard onto the stair behind him, and put his head between his knees a moment, trying to steady his breathing. His armor felt like bands around his chest.

Leather shuffled on stone, and then Zelda sat down on the step beside him. Her face was pale and pinched when he looked up, and her green eyes glittered in the torchlight. She hesitated a moment, eyes darting across his face, then reached out carefully and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“I feel it too,” she said quietly.

Ganondorf hummed in response, uncomprehending.

"I mean it," Zelda said. "The air being too heavy, the...the _wrongness_."

"I do too, but it doesn't bother me," Link said.

"But does it get better?" Ganondorf asked, watching Zelda carefully.

She shrugged, pulling her braid over her shoulder to play with it. "When we _find_ the thing that's infested this place with Malice, it stops being so cloying, and it goes away entirely when we kill it."

"Then we need to find it and kill it," he said.

"It would be easier if we knew where we were _going_ ," Zelda huffed.

Above them, Link hummed thoughtfully. "...Hey Zelda, you remember that thing you did in the other temple, with the, uh—"

"Yeah?”

"Maybe we could use it to find the way, since we don't have a map."

“Link, I could kiss you,” Zelda said.

“...Stop talking around me and explain what the ‘thing with the _uh_ ’ is,” Ganondorf said.

Zelda’s eyes lit up. “It’s one of my abilities— that is, the ones that come with being a descendant of Hylia,” she said eagerly, and her hands dropped to his forearm, fingers curling under the edges of his vambraces. “My grandmother theorized it was possible based on the writings of some of our ancestresses, but my mother was the first to actually _achieve_ it— that we can document, that is. The _theory_ is that it’s loosely adjacent to the meditative state that allows me to sense the ley lines, but—”

“Zelda,” Link said above them.

“Right, right,” Zelda said. “Getting carried away. Sorry. _Essentially_ , it’s a state of awareness that allows me to sense the locations and relative...power densities, as it were, of various masses of Malice in my general vicinity. And since the gatekeeper is _made_ of Malice—”

“Then you’ll be able to sense its location,” Ganondorf said thoughtfully.

“ _Exactly_ ,” Zelda said.

"We just have to be careful with it, because it lets the monsters know where we are," Link said.

"Last time, we got these...decaying bokoblins," Zelda said, and both of them shivered.

Ganondorf grimaced, the glint of a yellow eye through the door all too fresh in his mind. "I don't expect what finds us here will be any better," he said.

"Only one way to find out," Zelda said, and stood.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then the air around her began to ripple, golden light seeping from her skin and hair until she threw back the shadows around them, washing the stairwell in warm gold. Ganondorf felt it like a struck bell, resonating through his body, in his bones, thrumming against his skin like an echo of the sun's warmth at dawn. Zelda turned to look down the staircase, her eyes opening, and gold shone through them too, staring into places he couldn't see.

He thought of the cold, sharp presence he'd felt when raising the temple and shivered.

Zelda gasped. The light went out, leaving them in flickering torchlight once more. She staggered, and Ganondorf was on his feet in an instant, catching her by the wrist to support her. Link braced against her other shoulder. The princess trembled, leaning her weight against Ganondorf for a moment.

“Are you alright?” he asked softly.

“—I felt it,” Zelda gasped. “It’s— it’s bigger than the last one. And there are so _many_ —”

“So many _what_?” Link asked.

Before Zelda could answer, a resounding crash shook the air. Her grip on Ganondorf’s arm tightened, nails digging into him. Another grating screech of steel on stone.

From the top of the staircase.

“.......Fuck,” said Link.

Ganondorf pulled Zelda closer, down the steps, and then Link was at his other shoulder, tugging and pulling at the edge of his cloak. Their boots splashed in a rank puddle, throwing rusty ooze every which way. Cool air pressed through his kurta as they entered the tunnel proper, the smell of decay growing stronger. He looked left, then right, staring into the dark before casting a glance back over his shoulder.

“Which way?” he asked, shaking Zelda gently.

“—The right,” she said. “You were right, it’s below— below the sanctum. Right below it. But there’s more of them that way—”

“More of _what_?” he demanded. Another scrape behind him.

“Less talking, more moving,” Link said, and shoved at his shoulder. He stumbled. Zelda tugged his wrist, pulling them down the right-hand corridor.

“Like at the top of the landing,” Zelda said hurriedly, hefting her torch a little higher. “They’re like— they feel like little scraps of Malice, they’re tied to the gatekeeper. Strands of energy.”

They rounded a corner, and Ganondorf stopped dead in his tracks.

The room before them was full of Gerudo.

Zelda’s torchlight caught on vibrant fabric, on gold embroidery tarnished black. In a dozen glowing yellow eyes. Withered, dry hands clutched battered scimitars.

The nearest vai’s face was gashed from rusty brow to blue-painted lips. Malice oozed through the rent in her sunken skin. Her mouth opened.

She screamed.

Ganondorf’s knees buckled. His knees slammed hard into the stone floor, then palms, the skin scraped raw by the contact. Hot liquid ran down his neck from his ear. He forced himself to raise his head, shuddering against the pressure. His ears rang, sound muffled save the pulse of blood in his head.

The dead vai loomed over him. Her jaundiced eyes stared, accusing. Her shoulder jerked, the scimitar she carried lifting torturously.

Zelda’s hand tightened spasmodically on his wrist.

Ganondorf shook his head, trying to clear his ears. With his other hand he grabbed for his own scimitar, forced himself upright and lunged forward.

His blade caught the dead vai’s mid-swing, his arm juddering with the effort. Her withered arms couldn’t possibly hold so much strength, but she shoved him backwards. He pushed back, knocked her to the floor. Her empty hand scrabbled at the tile. Futilely. He thrust his sword through the gash in her face, felt her skull crack under his hands. A shudder ran up the blade of his scimitar as the tip struck the floor. Her jaw jerked, severed at the joint, her yellowed eyes fading to a dull magenta light.

A hand grabbed his shoulder. Ganondorf jerked and turned— and Link darted past him, sword unsheathed. The blade glowed in the dim light, flashing as it collided with a rusted saber swinging for them and snapped the lesser blade in twain. He met Zelda’s eyes a moment. The girl squeezed his shoulder, then reached up to touch the bow at her back.

The bow. It hit Ganondorf at once, what she needed him to do. He nodded and scrambled fully upright, pulling her up with him, and squeezed her hand.

Then he turned and unsheathed his second scimitar. The nearest vai— _corpse_ — lurched towards him. Barehanded. He lashed out with his off-hand. Her flesh parted beneath his blade, dessicated bones shattering. Malice poured from her. He leapt back away from the growing pool.

Link shouted, the sound breaking through the ringing in his ears. He spun towards the Hylian. Caught a falling scimitar with a cross-block and shoved. Planted his boot in a yielding gut. Something cracked when the corpse struck the ground, and he shook his head again and rammed his blade through her sternum to keep her from rising as her nails broke on his cape.

A deafening shriek cut through the air, and he staggered. Crashed back to his knees beside the corpse. Her head turned towards him, eyes brightening from throbbing embers to yellow fury. She grabbed for his face with claws, and he jerked, scrabbling backwards. Fingers caught in the hood of his cloak and pulled—

Link, towing him upright. “The _throat_ —” the Hylian gasped. Ganondorf hardly heard him. His skull rang like a struck bell.

Link released him, spinning on his heel and slamming another corpse back. The one on the floor clawed her way towards him, Malice pouring from the hole in her chest, and Ganondorf screamed and brought his swords down on her head until she stopped.

He turned. Caught another blow. Slashed a blade across a withered brown throat. Malice oozed like congealing blood from the wound. He rammed his swords through her chest again and shoved, hardly blocked another blow—

Too many—

An arrow struck the ground between him and the next corpse, glowing with brilliant light. White and gold filled his vision, and a blast struck him in the ribs, hurling him to the ground.

When the light faded, Ganondorf uncurled carefully, raising his head from the cradle of his arms. His right side ached where he’d struck stone, head pounding, hands stiff on the hilts of his scimitars. His ears still rang. His eyes focused, then crossed again as, across the room, Link brought down the last standing corpse and cut her throat. A pair of hands landed on his upper back, pulling gently at him.

Zelda.

The princess turned him towards her, and he went willingly, letting her turn his face from side to side to inspect him. She spoke— her lips moved, but no sound met his ears through the ringing. Her brows creased, and she turned toward Link, who had come trotting over while his attention was on Zelda, and held out a hand. Link nodded, grabbing at the Sheikah Slate, and Ganondorf hardly had the wherewithal to shield his face from the flash of light that followed. One of them pressed something into his hand— cool, smooth glass, and when he opened his eyes there was a bottle in his hand. It was filled to the neck with a bright red liquid, and he swirled the bottle thoughtfully, studying it. It _looked_ like one of the elixirs Hylian traders often carried with them to manage the heat of the desert, but those were usually _blue_ , as he recalled…

When he looked up at Link, the Hylian mimed uncorking the bottle and knocking it back.

Well, that explained it. Ganondorf did as he was bid. The elixir was acidic, almost bitter, and he winced as it hit the back of his throat and lowered the bottle after a couple of sips, grimacing up at Link. His inner ear had begun to itch— and his skinned knees and palms as well, and a deep-muscle ache bloomed along his bruised side— must have been the elixir taking effect. His ears popped a minute later, and he worked his jaw a moment before handing the bottle back to Link.

“That’s _disgusting_ ,” he said.

“They usually are,” Link said, shrugging apologetically, and took a swig of the elixir himself.

“Are you alright?” Zelda asked. She hadn’t let go of his shoulder, he noticed, like she was afraid he would collapse if she did. “I didn’t mean to catch you with that arrow— you were right in the middle of the blast zone.”

“That...wasn’t a bomb arrow,” Ganondorf said hesitantly.

Zelda shook her head. “One of mine— an amber arrow. I’ve been experimenting with it as a conduit for divine energy—”

“Princess,” Link said, almost warningly.

“Oh _please_ ,” Zelda huffed. “As if you haven’t lectured me on goat hoof care before.”

“Yeah, but not when we’re in a _temple_ ,” Link said. “You think any more of them are coming?”

Zelda went quiet immediately, and Ganondorf tilted his head, listening.

Nothing. Nothing but their own breathing.

“...I don’t think so,” Zelda said quietly. “It’s...strange. When I sensed the gatekeeper, it was as if these...creatures...were _connected_ to it— that _must_ be how they kept reviving like that—”

“Can we please not call them _creatures_ ?” Ganondorf cut in. “They are— they _were_ Gerudo. They...the least you can do is grant them the respect in death they haven’t been given.”

“...I’m sorry,” Link said quietly.

“It’s not your fault,” Ganondorf replied, and stood carefully, sheathing his blades at last and gazing around the room. 

The dead vai were still now, most of them laid flat or curled on their sides, and his stomach churned as his eyes fell on the one whose head he had staved in to defend himself. Her eyes would never be closed in death, not now. The one beside her was flat on her back, arms at her sides, and he padded closer, hands in fists. She’d taken a blow up under her armor, through her stomach, and though neither blood nor Malice pooled beneath her, he couldn’t look at her too-still body, her empty, slack face.

He knelt beside her and, gently, pulled her desiccated eyelids closed.

“...We need to find the gatekeeper,” he said quietly, rising again to his feet. “If they’re all connected to it, if we _destroy_ it, then they can rest— I can send the Rova and their acolytes to—”

His voice broke before he could say _bring them home_.

“...Zelda, you said it was up ahead?” Link asked.

“Yes,” Zelda replied. He heard her take a few steps forward to stand beside him, though she didn’t touch him. “...Are you alright to go on?”

“Do I have another choice?” Ganondorf asked dryly.

There was a pause, and then Link stepped forward as well, bumping his shoulder against Ganondorf’s as he crossed the room, stepping carefully around the fallen warriors until he reached the door on the other side. He looked back, then, his hand on the rusted doorknob. Ganondorf met his gaze, then looked down at Zelda— who looked back up at him and nodded. They joined him in the same motion, standing aside as Link opened the door.

Another empty hall waited for them on the other side, shadowed by their torchlight, though Ganondorf could see a glint of metal somewhere in the gloom. Zelda hefted her torch a little higher, and he took that as a cue to enter the hall, letting her follow behind and throw light into the space.

There was another door on the other end. A pristine one. The wood was smooth and glossy in the torchlight, as if it had just been freshly conditioned, and the metal bands holding it together and the steel of the doorknob shone polished. It hung straight on its hinges, and instinct told Ganondorf that if he pulled it open, those hinges wouldn’t so much as whisper.

Some part of him quailed at the idea of even touching it.

“...That just doesn’t look right,” Link said.

“I can’t believe there’s a door here at all,” Zelda said. “The mass of Malice in the sanctum is almost directly above us— if it came up through the floor, it should have flooded this chamber. That door should have been _eaten away_ three thousand years ago.”

Ganondorf steeled himself and strode forward, holding his hand above the knob, and closed his eyes. He reached out, feeling for the enchantment he was _certain_ was in the wood. And there it was, tingling under his palm and filling his mouth with ozone. The metal was electrified.

“Both of you stay back,” he said, not opening his eyes or looking back at the Hylians. “There’s lightning-work in the steel, you’ll get a shock if you touch it.”

Or him at that point, for that matter— the electricity reached up to the metal of his gauntlets, crackling harmlessly to bracer to pauldron to breastplate, his braid beginning to curl and lift as the charge rolled harmlessly through him. The spell was a deterrent— meant to keep out non-mages— but he could feel the catches in its working like a lock, and he reached out with his reserves of power, pressing at them until they opened one by one under his probing. The spell tasted copper under his tongue as he undid the last catch and let it slide open. The frisson across his skin as the charge dissipated was oddly familiar, though he was certain he’d never worked one like this before.

“I think I have it unlocked now. It should be safe,” he said, opening his eyes and glancing back over his shoulder at Link and Zelda.

The pair of them looked at each other, then hurried to join him as one, standing close at either side. Link’s elbow bumped against his side— he’d reached up and put his hand on the Blade sheathed at his shoulder, then drew it evenly. The length of the blade glowed faintly blue in his hands, and the air around it felt almost charged. Zelda seemed to share that thought, as she slung her bow from her shoulder and nocked an arrow. Ganondorf nodded and closed his hand on the doorknob, which hummed gently under his hand as he twisted it and pushed.

His instinct had been right. The hinges didn’t so much as whisper as the door swung open.

The chamber on the other side of the door was bright, lit everywhere with topaz sconces still crackling with electricity. The floor was swept clean, flagstones reflecting the light— where they weren’t engulfed in Malice. Tendrils of it snaked across the floor, sinking between the stones like overgrown roots and growing thicker as they spread up the walls, all of them seeming to pulse and shudder. Like a heartbeat. The tendrils of Malice stopped at the bounds of a circle of glyphs in the floor, shining faintly silver in the light, and Ganondorf tracked one line of writing up and up—

To the pedestal dead-center in the room. A massive black sword was thrust into it, jagged-edged, with dark wings sweeping up and away from the hilt. A red gem shone between them, but something told Ganondorf it wasn’t a ruby. It glinted darkly in the light, watchful as an eye. His palms ached and burned.

“...Where’s the gatekeeper?” Zelda asked.

Link took a step forward over the threshold, sword at the ready. “...I don’t see it. Might still be in the Malice…”

Zelda followed him, and Ganondorf let himself join them, peering around the room. The ceiling was lost overhead— no, not lost, the Malice had eaten the wooden floor between them and the sanctum above, joining the two rooms— and the walls were rounded, eaten smooth by the Malice save for where the topaz still shone. Lines of silver ran down from them, joining up at the circle of glyphs around the pedestal, and the Malice did not cross them. Link and Zelda were careful to step over them, and Ganondorf followed their lead. The room fairly hummed with magic, growing louder as he stepped closer to the bounds of the circle.

The sword hung in the edges of his vision, and his palms itched. Something told him that, if he drew it, his hands would fit perfectly on that hilt. The taste of copper blossomed under his tongue again, like he’d bitten himself.

“—Dragmire, wait—” Zelda called.

Ganondorf froze. He hadn’t realized he’d been moving.

When he looked down, he’d stepped into the circle, one boot over the line, and one on it. The light flickered abruptly.

Then it went out.

Darkness seeped from the glyphs. Not like Malice, more like smoke. Ganondorf sprang back— away from it, away from the sword— as it billowed up, curling like claws for the oozing tendrils of Malice on the walls, which moved in turn. Smoke and viscous fluid curled about each other. A hundred eyes opened. The Malice peeled itself up off the floor, curling and coiling into a shape beside the sword.

A person-shape. 

The Malice pulsed, condensed, stretched too tall, the limbs contorted, the joints reversed. Black armor pulsed thickly to the surface of the mass, the curve of a Gerudo breastplate, the sharp thrust of pauldrons. The hands, when it opened them, had too many fingers. Or too few. It opened eyes across its stomach. In the gap between gorget and throat. On its face, _askew_ . Its hands closed on the hilt of the sword, shoulders _twisting_ , and the beast pulled the blade from the pedestal. The air throbbed. Ganondorf shuddered.

“Don’t just _stand_ there,” Zelda hissed. A hand caught Ganondorf’s cloak and pulled him backwards. He stumbled sideways, grabbing for his scimitars and circling the beast.

The eyes on the thing’s face twitched to follow him. The ones on its throat and stomach tracked other movements— Link and Zelda circling the other direction. A mouth split its face like a wound, yellowed fang and oozing, glowing magenta. A hissed intake of breath, scenting the air. 

A bowstring sang. An arrow sprouted from the beast’s throat. The thing _screamed_ , and Ganondorf staggered.

Link was on it in an instant. His sword was an arc of light, slashing at the blackened cuirass. The beast took the first blow, stumbling on twisted legs. It caught the second on the jagged edge of the sword and _shoved_. Tossed Link aside. It rose, lifting a hand in a too-familiar gesture. Lightning crackled around its outstretched fingers as it pointed at the prone Hylian beneath it

The air filled with the scent of ozone.

Ganondorf moved without thinking, thrusting his own hand skyward, fist clenched. The beast’s head snapped towards him. Its hand fell, scything towards him. He raised his arms in a cross-block, and the lightning wrapped itself around his forearms like a whip. The beast _pulled_. Ganondorf stumbled, then braced, teeth gritted. His mouth was full of copper.

A second arrow slammed home into the side of the beast’s head, spraying Malice, and the lightning flickered out. Ganondorf staggered as the pull vanished, regaining his footing a moment later, just as Link rammed into the beast from behind. His sword sang in his hands. The air around him glowed hazy blue.

The beast sprang back, raising its own sword and slashing at Link— but the Hylian wasn’t there anymore. He’d ducked the blow. Come up under it to land blows across the beast’s gut where its too-small breastplate failed to cover. Malice flowed like blood. The beast _screamed_.

The Malice still coating the walls throbbed in response. Ganondorf froze. Link leapt back, sword at the ready, but the beast didn’t pursue him. The Malice of its form twisted, and it surged up— launched itself skyward into the darkened sanctum above. Movement in the corner of his eye. Zelda, raising her bow to track its flight. The arrowhead glowed gold as if lit from within. She drew, and Ganondorf found himself watching the flex of her arm, powerful muscles straining against the confines of her kurta.

She loosed the arrow in a burst of light, and the beast _wailed_. The percussive blast of the amber arrowhead shattering hurled it into the wall. The building shuddered. The beast didn’t fall. 

It raised its sword instead. Lightning crackled down the jagged length of the blade, rippling red and gold. Ganondorf’s eyes were drawn up to the body. Magenta veins pulsed and glowed through the black of the Malice. Its empty hand seemed unraveled, hardly holding its shape, and more eyes had opened across its form, staring malevolently. His diadem was hot against his brow.

 _Ah_. He’d forgotten about it. About the store of energy in the topaz.

The beast lowered the sword, pointing the maelstrom of lightning along its length at Link and Zelda. Ganondorf stepped forward. He could taste the energy in the air, could feel the knot of lightning at the beast’s core. Lightning and something else, something unfamiliar. The beast thrust forward. Thunder shook the temple.

Ganondorf threw his arms up and caught the blow as it fell. Lightning surged up his forearms, snapped across his shoulders and stung down his spine. The beast roared fury and hauled back on the tether of electricity binding them. Ganondorf pulled back, tasting the ozone in his throat. He caught hold of the spell with both hands, reaching for the knot of lightning and pulling at it. Lightning unspooled. His heart stuttered in his chest.

The _something else_ unspooled too, spilling silver across the shape of the void. Silver like the binding circle. The beast screamed and fell, striking the floor with a blow that shook the earth. Ganondorf pulled, reeled the silver threads out of the knot of Malice at the heart of the beast. There was form beneath the Malice, a shape he nearly recognized— 

The point of the Blade of Evil’s Bane emerged from the beast’s chest, shattering the hollow breastplate into shards of light. 

It _wailed_ , crackling upwards in flakes of magenta light and ash. The Malice on the walls peeled up with it, the silver circle on the floor brightening beneath them. The air lightened. Ganondorf fell to his knees, the lightning fading as the beast did, until the only sound in the sanctum was their own heavy breathing.

“....... _Goddess bright_ ,” Zelda gasped, shattering the silence.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Link said in agreement, and pushed himself back to his feet.

Ganondorf shook himself and rose as well, closing his eyes to feel for the pulse of the energy of the space. It was brighter without the Malice, clearer and cleaner, and he could feel it rippling through the floor, pushing the numbness from his exhausted limbs.

“What in _Din’s name_ was _that_?” he asked.

Silence.

“...I don’t know,” Link said quietly.

“It wasn’t like the last gatekeeper,” Zelda said. Ganondorf opened his eyes to look at her. Her dark hair was partially loose from its braid, hanging around her shoulders in tangled masses. “The last one...it was partially Sheikah technology and partly Malice, but this one was…”

“All Malice,” Link agreed. “And the sword, too. The last one’s weapon disappeared when it died.” Metal squealed on stone— he’d nudged the black sword with the toe of a boot, scooting it across the floor.

“ _Don’t_ touch that,” Ganondorf said, the words spilling out before he could stop himself.

Zelda cocked her head to one side, green eyes glittering. “Why not?”

Ganondorf’s face heated. “I— it feels wrong, and I think touching it at _all_ would have...consequences.”

“Then we’ll leave it,” Zelda said, and shoved a hank of hair out of her face. “We’re here about the flame, anyway, not some evil-looking sword.”

Link’s expression was more skeptical, and he prodded the leather-wrapped hilt of the black sword again with the toe of his boot before crossing to the other side of the room, where silver letters had begun to shimmer in the arch of a doorway. It must have been hidden in a fall of Malice before— Ganondorf didn’t remember seeing it when he came in. He picked his way across the room to join Link, standing slightly behind the Hylian and studying the door. The script was unfamiliar to him, seeming to shift across the stone.

Zelda bumped up against his right side. “Well? Care to do the honors, Link?”

Link nodded and raised his hand, laying his palm against the center of the door.

The moving script stilled, brightening, then faded out entirely— and the door rippled away with it, leaving the open hall behind it. Cool air whispered through the breach, spectral blue light filtering down the passage from a larger chamber beyond. Ganondorf stilled, gazed into the dimness. The faintest hint of copper bloomed beneath his tongue.

The Hylians had no such hesitation. Link shrugged his shoulders a little, shifting the lay of the sheath across his back, and strode through the open doorway. Zelda ducked around Ganondorf to follow him, her boots tapping at the stone. Ganondorf shook himself. This was nothing, really— not compared to the gatekeeper-beast, or to the fallen Gerudo warriors— it shouldn’t have sent a shiver down his spine.

He followed the Hylians.

The hallway was dim, but short, and it quickly opened up into a round, high-ceilinged chamber flooded with that pale blue light. The sandstone underfoot looked almost white in its glow, as did the walls, every inch of which were covered in carvings. Ganondorf rocked back on his heels and took them all in— the arch and bow of flame and wind chasing across them, stylized lines of canyon systems winding across the ceiling like a map. The wall opposite the doorway was muraled with the Triforce, bright golden tiles edged in red and green and blue, the Crest of Din red and proud in its center. A low brazier, empty of flame, ran the length of the wall beneath it. Hylia’s crest was graven on the center of it, the edges as crisp as if the mason had just lifted her chisel.

“Right,” Zelda said, and clapped her hands together. “Hold off on the Flame a minute, Link, I want to get a look at the mural for the next one.”

The princess stood looking up at the wall to the right of the doorway, studying the other prominent mural in the room. This one was a stylized crest like a flame, one Ganondorf _didn’t_ recognize— the shape of it was unlike the stylizations for Din, blockier by comparison. The Mark of Nayru glowed at its heart, shimmering blue chased in gold, and there was writing beneath in the same unfamiliar script as had marked the vanished door. Zelda knelt at the foot of the mural, tracing her fingers over the lettering.

“What does it say?” Ganondorf asked, padding over to take a look.

“Hold on a moment, let me look,” Zelda said. Her fingers paused at the end of the first line, brows furrowing. “... _Peaks where the winds break..._ and something about _the wise_ …...it’s hard to tell, the stylization on these lines are _something else_ — I’d almost think this was Gerudo script, but—”

“It isn’t,” Ganondorf said. “What does it _mean_?”

“They’re clues to the location of the next temple,” Link said. “The first one led us to the Spring of Courage in Faron, the second one pointed us out to the desert, and......I can’t tell with this one. Any luck, Zelda?”

“None,” she replied. “Hand me the Slate— I’m going to take a picture of this and finish translating when we get back to town. After we get some sleep, that is, so my eyes stop crossing while I try to decipher it.”

Link snorted and slid the Slate out of the holster on his hip, passing it to Zelda. The screen brightened under her touch, and she tapped at the right-hand side of the screen— and then again, and then clicked on a glyph.

The eye on the back blinked open.

Ganondorf took a hasty step back, away from it, but Zelda didn’t seem to notice. She held the Slate up instead, pointing it towards the wall, and the screen shifted, displaying the inscription as clearly and crisply as it appeared on the wall. She tapped again— and then a second time, before pressing a button on the device’s face. The screen went black.

“...So, what does that do?” Ganondorf asked, crouching beside her. The eye had closed again, he noted, and she passed it back to Link before she answered him.

“My grandmother’s notes call it a ‘pictogram’,” Zelda said. “It recreates a true-to-life image of an object or an inscription— I usually copy them down instead, but I’m worried my own assumptions about the style of this script will lead me to mistranslate it, so it’s better to have the pictogram.”

“Sensible,” Ganondorf said. He hesitated, studying her face a moment. She looked dust-smudged and weary, but her green eyes were still bright. “So...you’ll be leaving the desert after this, then?” he asked carefully.

Zelda stood, brushing her hair out of her face again, and Ganondorf had to clench his hands into fists to keep from pulling her hair back himself. “...Well, I suppose we’ll have to finish that stupid treaty negotiation, but I can just tell my father you wouldn’t cede to his demands and threw us out, and then Link and I will be out of your way. Are you amenable to that?”

“More than amenable,” Ganondorf said, suppressing a sigh of relief. “So all that’s left here is…”

“The Flame,” Zelda said.

Link crossed back to the center of the room, positioning himself in front of the crest on the brazier. He raised his sword skyward.

For a moment, nothing. Then the crest lit up blue— and then a moment later the Mark of Din on the wall behind it began to glow like molten metal, and a crimson flame leapt up in the brazier, and—

_Ganondorf was on his knees. The room shuddered about him— bathed in crimson light instead of blue. Link and Zelda were gone, but the room was not empty._

_A Gerudo stood between him and the brazier, her back to him. Her hair was cropped short, irregularly, like it had been hacked off with a sword. Her cape was caked in dust and dried blood, as were her boots and what he could see of her sirwal. She shifted uncomfortably before the raging fire in the brazier._

_“Will it be enough?” she asked the empty air. Her voice was strident. Familiar. “If I open the gate, will this_ power _be enough to avenge my sisters’ deaths upon Hyrule?”_

_Silence._

_The Gerudo nodded. Her arms shifted— she tossed something into the air. A polished orb, small enough to fit in Ganondorf’s cupped palm, glowing blue and violet by turns. “...Very well, Lord,” she said, and tossed the orb again. The air around her shimmered._ “I open the gate—”

_The temple thundered. Ganondorf jolted forward onto his palms, and the Gerudo cried out._

_“No—” she cried._

_She turned._

_She was not a woman. The brilliant orange topaz of the War Crown sat centered on the King’s brow, the solar disc of the headdress haloing his battered face, and the eyes that stared back at Ganondorf were his own._

_Black Malice-light opened behind him._

“—gmire?” Zelda called, shaking his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Ganondorf shook himself. He _was_ on his knees after all, kneecaps abraded by his linen sirwal when they struck the floor, and Link and Zelda peered down at him with matching looks of concern. Cautiously, he pushed himself back to his feet. Something bumped against his hip as he rose— a small, round weight that hadn’t been there when he’d fallen, and his hand twitched with a need to reach into his pocket and see what it was.

“...I’m alright, just...dizzy for a moment,” he said. “It’s been a _very_ long day.”

Zelda hummed thoughtfully.

Link nodded. “It has,” he said.

“Come on, then,” Zelda said. “There’s stairs behind the mural on the left wall that should take us back to the surface.”

She turned her back, then, padding over to join Link near the other mural, and Ganondorf’s hand dropped to his pocket immediately. His fingers closed on a cool, smooth ball, just large enough to fit into his cupped palm, and when he withdrew his hand, the orb the King had thrown winked back at him from the depths of his pocket.


	6. Chapter 5: The Desert Gateway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! Bit of a shorter chapter this week, as a break after the last big one (...I say, of a chapter that's over 6k long).  
> This chapter is also the end of the first arc, and with that I have a bit of an announcement. Real life sort of caught up to me, and I have two chapters left to finish in the _next_ arc, and then editing, so you should expect 6-8 weeks between this chapter, posted 6/20/20, and the next one, if all goes well.
> 
> Also! If you're interested, I've got some art up on my [ Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shadow-djinni) if you're interested, or if you'd like to drop in for a chat my ask box and messages are always open!

Eyelids were weighty things sometimes, Link thought. Especially when you’d spent your entire night in an underground temple. _His_ certainly were, anyway, and crusted and bleary besides when he finally forced them open. He rubbed the heel of his hand to clear the rime away, blinking sleepily at the vaguely-familiar stone wall across from him as the events of the previous night filtered back.

No, not quite ‘the previous night’, judging by the angle of the light slanting through the shutters and painting afternoon-golden stripes across the floor. That morning. _Early_ that morning, after moonset but before the first grey light of dawn. He and Zelda had come stumbling up the stairs in the dark, shedding clothes and collapsing into the bed nearest to the door, too weary to bother with any sort of decorum or decency.

The warm weight of her body was gone, he noted, and a bolt of anxiety shot through him, jolting him upright to look around.

He regretted it instantly as his back and side screamed in protest where he’d struck the ground when the gatekeeper threw him aside. Dark bruises had bloomed overnight when he stretched to inspect himself, and he hissed quietly and prodded at the large violet one spanning his ribcage. Not broken, but certainly painful. He’d be taking a swig of one of his healing elixirs before he left the room, that was for sure. He sat up again, more carefully this time, and scanned the room.

Zelda was gone. The other bed was unoccupied, her discarded clothing from the night before folded neatly on the foot of the bed, her boots missing. Link racked his brain for an answer— _surely_ she wouldn’t have gone for breakfast without him?

No, he’d forgotten Dragmire. They still had treaty negotiations— the Gerudo King would have been waiting for Zelda when she woke, nevermind how exhausted he’d been when they reached the walls of Gerudo Town.

Link pushed himself to his feet, stretching languorously and wincing at the pull on his bruised side, then scanned the room again, this time for a note or an explanation of some sort. Zelda would have left one for him, she always did when she woke earlier than him. His eyes fell on a pile of cloth atop the chest-of-drawers, beside the wash basin— it hadn’t been there the night before, and, sure enough, was topped with a note. As he’d expected, it bore Zelda’s distinctive, untidy scrawl, the ink smudged where her hand had smeared it in her haste.

 _Link— meeting with Dragmire. Wrapping treaty negotiations this afternoon. Come meet us as soon as you get up; ask Aveil about directions to the stateroom._ _  
_ _The clothing is from Dragmire, says it’s to replace what we ruined in the temple. Wash, dress, and don’t dawdle._ __  
—Zelda

While the ink had been damp when Zelda set it aside, it was long dry now— hours ago, probably. She’d be deep in negotiations by now, and wouldn’t notice if he took a little longer than necessary. He set the note aside, then dipped his fingers into the pitcher beside the washbasin. It had long gone cool, or as cool as water ever got in a pitcher in the afternoon, and he sighed and dipped a washcloth into it and washed carefully, hissing as every twist pulled at his bruised side. The water darkened with every dip of the cloth, dust and sand settling to the bottom of the wash basin, and was nearly black by the time he finished cleaning his body. He grimaced at it, then flipped his head upside down over it and carefully poured the remaining water over his head, rinsing the dust from his hair.

Then he turned his attention to the clothing. Kurta and sirwal, like the set he’d purchased at the bazaar, dyed a deep forest green. Yellow and blue embroidery chased itself in curving geometric patterns across the collar and cuffs, pairing nicely with the blue sash he found tucked under the kurta. A veil accompanied the ensemble, also blue, the cloth so fine as to be nearly see-through when he held it up to the light. 

Dragmire, clearly, had been paying attention to his color preferences. 

Link dressed quickly, then dug his sandals out from under his bed. The Slate clattered out as well— _certainly_ not where he’d left it the night before, shoved hastily under his pack with his sword belt and the Sword. Inky fingerprints smudged the edges of the case, and when he powered it up, it loaded to the pictographs Zelda had taken the night before of the inscription on the murals.

She must have been up long before him, then. He could picture her in the morning light, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulder and pooling on the bed as she poured over the pictures and her notes to translate it. When he fumbled under the bed again for the Slate’s carrying case, Zelda’s pen rolled out with it, and he smiled fondly and tucked it into her pack.

Then he returned to the Slate, tapping away from the pictogram storage and back to what Zelda referred to as the ‘supply’ screens to select the mostly-empty bottle of the healing elixir, then drained the bottle and returned the empty to the Slate’s storage, ignoring the ache and itching as it went to work on his bruised side. The Slate went back into its storage pouch, and he shoved it back under the bed to bump up against the Sword, out of sight.

Then he stood, pulling at the hem of the kurta to straighten it, and spun once, letting the loose fabric fall into place around his body. He wrapped his veil carefully, tucking and arranging the folds to better hide his face under the sheer fabric, pulled on his sandals, and hurried to the door.

The guard, Aveil, was waiting outside on the landing. She seemed almost like she’d been dozing in the midafternoon heat, but she jumped at the creak of the door, then shot him a dirty look. Her knuckles whitening on the haft of her spear. “I thought you were still sleeping,” she said, eyes narrowed.

“Where’s Chief Dragmire’s stateroom?” he asked, instead of responding. “I’m supposed to meet him and Princess Zelda there.”

Aveil scowled, then huffed, her breath puffing out her veil. “Take the stairs down to the first landing, then follow that hall all the way to the mural of Din— the red glass one with the earth-and-flame motif. Make a left-hand turn at that intersection. His stateroom is the one with the Tantari crest on the door.”

The halls were warm, warmer than their quarters had been, but not enough to be stressful, and the slap of his sandals echoed on the walls as he made his way down the stairs to the first landing. He passed a handful of guards on the way, but none stopped them, even when he reached the mural of Din and turned left into what was clearly the royal family's wing of the palace. He counted three doors, and then the fourth was marked with a symbol— like a mask, he thought, symmetrical down the middle with two circles like eyes gazing at him. He paused there a moment, studying the polished wood.

Then he rapped on the door, right between the eyes of the crest.

There was a flurry of movement— paper shuffling on wood, cloth on cloth—from the other side of the door, and then Dragmire's voice called, "You may enter." 

Link pushed the door open.

Dragmire's stateroom was cool and dim, the only sources of light a pair of topaz sconces high on the wall. There was no desk, as he had anticipated— both Zelda and her father had them in their offices— only a long, low table with rugs and heaps of pillows on either side. There were three people waiting for him— Zelda, her eyes wide and startled at the intrusion, Dragmire, leaning against the table and still pointing at the map, and a second Gerudo in the white-and-red kurta of the royal guard, who Link eventually recognized as Nabooru, the guard who had stopped by to flirt with him during Zelda’s first meeting with Dragmire.

“Kind of you to join us right at the end of our meeting,” Zelda huffed, but there was no real heat in her tone. She patted the pillows beside her with an ink-smudged hand, and he took the invitation, settling beside her immediately.

“Did you sleep well?” Dragmire asked, pushing aside a sheaf of papers to lean forward as Link sat down.

Link couldn’t help taking a moment to look him over. Dragmire’s hair was loose about his shoulders, still heavy with water and darkened from fiery red to warm auburn. He’d evidently opted for his wrap skirt and nothing else, not even jewelry, and Link couldn’t help the way his eyes roved across his shoulders, his chest. Even across the table, he could smell the amber and musk clinging to Dragmire’s skin, his hair. He was, abruptly, quite grateful for the veil hiding his expression.

“—I slept just fine,” Link said, and shook himself, redirecting his gaze up to Dragmire’s luminous eyes instead.

Nabooru arched a brow, a knowing grin spreading across her face. Link blushed hotly and looked away, trying to ignore it.

"Good to hear," Dragmire said.

"He was still snoring when I left," Zelda said, nearly laughing, and Link shot her a dirty look out of the corner of his eye.

Dragmire had clearly paid attention to Zelda's color preferences as well— her new kurta was a deep burgundy, embroidered gold and violet at the hems, and her sirwal were white, _true_ white, not cream like her last set had been. She was unveiled, her dark hair pulled up in a messy scholar's bun, and her fingers were still smudged with ink.

She looked more like herself, he thought, than she did in her court finery. More comfortable in her own skin. More beautiful.

She rolled her eyes at him in response to his scowl and turned back to Dragmire. “Link can have his veil off in here, right?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Dragmire replied, slouching sideways until his bare shoulder bumped up against Nabooru’s. “Nabs, will you be upset if it turns out a Hylian man has slipped past the guards and into the stateroom of the Gerudo King?”

“I might have to throw him out,” Nabooru said, then winked at him.

Link snorted and pulled down his veil in response. Nabooru’s grin widened, and she shot Dragmire a sidelong glance and elbowed him in the ribcage.

Dragmire elbowed her back, then leaned forward again, tapping at a spot on the map. “Now, Zelda, you were saying something about a second market at Koukot before Link decided to join us?”

“Yes, right!” Zelda said, leaning in as well. “It isn’t _quite_ what my father wanted, in terms of a trade deal, but it _is_ more readily accessible than coming all the way to Gerudo Town, which should allow for more trade of perishable goods. He should be willing to acquiesce on that point, seeing as it _works_ better for his excuse than opening the market at Gerudo Town to male merchants would.”

“Then I’ll send a message to Lady Sabura on the matter,” Dragmire said. “...As I recall, she sent a requisition a week or so ago, asking a delegation of stoneworkers be sent to Koukot— if I remember correctly, she wanted to expand the ground-level halls near the Desert Gateway to accommodate more travellers and their entourages. She _should_ be amenable to overseeing a market there as well, I’m certain the highland tribes would appreciate an opportunity for trade that doesn’t demand a trip to the Ranel Bazaar or Parapa proper.”

“And if Lady Sabura won’t spring for it, I’m sure Konora will,” Nabooru said. “She’s been itching for a chance to prove herself a competent trader that _doesn’t_ require seeking Nayru’s wisdom.”

Dragmire snorted. “No, she’d rather be guarding the temple, wouldn’t she? As I recall she doesn’t enjoy the company of men.”

Link squinted at the two of them, then glanced sideways at Zelda, who shrugged.

“Anyway,” Dragmire said, gathering up more of the papers and beginning to return them to the folio, “I believe that covers all the additions we needed to make to the treaty?”

“It should,” Zelda said. “I can’t remember anything else, anyway.”

“Excellent,” Dragmire replied. He flipped through a few of the papers, brows furrowing slightly, then added, "Though it may be in our best interest to send your father a message with regards to the Yiga. Auru briefed me on the search for their stronghold, and as far as we can tell, they are no longer based in Gerudo territory— and we cannot breach Hyrule's borders, even to hunt the Yiga."

Zelda grimaced. “I’ll notify him in my own message as well,” she said. “Maybe he’ll take it more seriously to hear it from his own daughter.”

Dragmire sighed quietly, tucking away the last of his papers. “...Somehow I doubt he will, and I’m sorry to say it.”

“If he doesn’t, it’s his eventual loss,” Zelda said. “Odds are _very_ good they’ll strike at him next.”

An awkward silence fell.

“...Right,” Link said uncomfortably. “So, um...Zelda left me a note saying you wanted me here, and...I don’t think it was to discuss the treaty.”

“Yes,” Dragmire said. "I thought it would be in our best interest to...discuss the events of last night before the pair of you leave Parapa."

"Agreed," Zelda said, lifting the weights holding down her end of the map so Dragmire could roll it up and put it away as well. "That was _not_ like the last temple, in...a lot of ways."

Dragmire grimaced. “My apologies. I fear I may have...unnecessarily complicated your approach to the temple with my presence.”

“We never would have gotten in without you,” Link said, shaking his head in reply.

“You streamlined it, if anything,” Zelda agreed. “I suspect the battle with the gatekeeper would have been _much_ more difficult if you hadn’t been there to corral the lightning.”

“...About the gatekeeper,” Dragmire said slowly. “There was...a component to its working that wasn’t Malice-work exclusively, which I felt when I caught its lightning-work.”

Link stiffened. The pillow shifted beneath him as Zelda sat up, and he heard her sharp intake of breath, saw the way her fingers had curled against the wood of the table. His own shoulders had gone tight.

“...Then what was it?” Zelda asked, her head tilting.

Dragmire exhaled. “It was...the same work as the circle on the floor, I believe. A school of Gerudo magecraft, one I am personally unfamiliar with— a binding of some sort. Meant to _hold_ it. I’ve spoken with the Rova, and they believe it was evidence of that apocryphal descent into the Colossus by the Sage Nabooru. And...they think it may be evidence that _other_ apocrypha of that era may have more truth to them than they seem.”

“They’re planning on looking further into it, and I’m supposed to help,” Nabooru said, rolling her eyes. “Dusty tomes and old scrolls for me.”

“I have to admit, I’m jealous,” Zelda said, flashing her a smile. She paused, and her eyes widened, and she fumbled for something under the table, then pulled out her field journal and set it down with a triumphant thump. “Right! I suppose I should tell you what I deciphered from the inscription in the Chamber of the Flame.”

Link’s heart jumped in his chest. “You got it translated?”

“I think so,” Zelda said. She flipped through the pages of the notebook, past diagrams and sketches of older temples, to the last written page in the book. She’d transcribed the inscription at the top, exactly as it had appeared in the mural, while the rest of the page— and the one across from it— were covered in dense notes. “This one was complicated— it’s definitely ancient Sheikah, but the stylization of the lettering looks more like ancient _Gerudo_ script, rather than purely ancient Sheikah or Hyllic-influenced Sheikah, like you find in some sites in Faron and Necluda— which made it a little more difficult to decipher, and this one is...vague. There are a couple of alternative translations.”

“Do tell,” Dragmire said, leaning forward. His golden eyes shone with interest.

“So, the simplest possible translation,” Zelda said. “ _On high peaks where the great winds break, the wise their thirst for vision slake, in lost halls where the blue flame wakes_ . But this may be lacking in nuance— ‘knowledge’ and ‘vision’ are used interchangeably in texts of this age, so this may refer to a repository of knowledge _or_ a sacred site once used for meditation, and…” She paused and looked up, her brows knitting. “...The word I’ve translated here as ‘lost’ may in fact read more accurately as ‘dark’, or ‘shadowed’. It isn’t a commonly used term in ancient Sheikah texts, they usually use a different word to signify things being _lost_ , and I’ve never encountered _this_ one outside of a dictionary before.”

“...You said last night that these are typically clues as to the location of the next temple, right?” Dragmire asked.

“We did,” Link said. “Sounds like this one’s on a mountain.”

“I’ve narrowed it down to two possible locations,” Zelda said. “The Temple of Nayru’s Flame will be located _either_ on Mount Lanayru, potentially near the Spring of Wisdom, or it will be somewhere on the slopes of Mount Hebra.”

“...Well, the one for Farore’s Flame was near the Spring of Courage,” Link said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Nayru’s was near Wisdom.”

“Potentially,” Zelda said. “But ancient Sheikah _is_ quite definitive when it comes to plurals, and the first line said _peaks_ , specifically. Not ‘peak’, singular. And Mount Hebra has _multiple_ peaks, while Lanayru is solitary— _and_ we’ll waste less time travelling north to Tabantha and then to Necluda if I’m wrong than we would travelling to Necluda first, and...we’ll run less of a risk of my father sending someone to catch us out on the road if we’re wrong.”

“...That seems like an unreasonable measure to take,” Dragmire said.

Zelda rolled her eyes. “He’ll be angry we didn’t get him a treaty that lets him invade your town with men, and he told me he’d have someone _fetch_ me if I botched another diplomatic relationship.”

Nabooru snorted. “ _Please_ . Botched? You led this besotted idiot into a haunted temple and brought him out alive again, I think you’ve _strengthened_ them,” she said, and pushed at Dragmire’s shoulder.

“I’m not _besotted_ ,” Dragmire muttered, and pushed her back. “But, to go back to the temple again, I spoke with the Rova about some of the things we saw in there, and...between that, and the supposed Marks of the Triune they claim the three of us bear, and— they think I should accompany you to the Temple of Nayru.”

Link’s jaw dropped. Zelda tensed beside him again, and Dragmire looked away from them, his cheeks reddening.

“Is that...something you’re permitted to do?” Zelda asked. She leaned forward, as if she wanted to reach out, and Dragmire looked up again, brushing a heavy lock of hair out of his face.

“I’ve already spoken with Lady Isha— and with Nabooru, and they’ve agreed to watch over the people in my absence,” Dragmire said.

“I _am_ the Champion, after all,” Nabooru said, almost smugly. “I’m pretty sure I can run things here while Mira goes off chasing visions.”

“ _And_ since knowledge of my identity hasn’t spread beyond our borders at this point, it’s still safe for me to travel,” Dragmire said. “And...Aunt Koume and Kotake both said that they’ve ‘hidden me from my destiny’ for long enough, and that if it’s come to claim me, I’d be a fool to hide from it.”

“...Unfortunately, they’re right,” Zelda said quietly. “When destiny comes for you, there’s no choice but to face it.” She paused a moment, then sighed and said, “Link and I had intended to leave as soon as this treaty business was concluded. Can you be ready to set out by this evening?”

“Certainly,” Dragmire replied. “My remaining duties shouldn’t take more than a few hours this afternoon. What time do you intend to leave?”

Zelda glanced sidelong at Link, one brow arched. Link hesitated a moment, then shrugged lightly.

“There was something I needed to do in town before we leave, but that shouldn’t take long either,” he said, and met Dragmire’s gaze again. “How does sunset at the East Gate sound?”

“Like more than enough time,” Dragmire said. “I’ll let the pair of you attend to your affairs, then, and meet you at sunset.”

He rose then, stretching neatly, and made his way around the table to help Zelda to her feet. Link sprang up as well, steadying himself on her arm— and felt a shock roll through him. Zelda stifled a gasp, and he saw Dragmire’s grip tighten on her hand.

The shock faded a moment later, and Link let go of Zelda’s arm— Dragmire released her hand just as hastily, his eyes wide. He stepped quickly back out of range, inclining his head, and hurried to the door, opening it to the hallway and waving them out. Zelda glanced sidelong at Link, her eyes wide with a question, and Link found himself without any answers but a shrug. He tugged her towards the door instead, and they went without a word, though he saw her brows crease as they passed Dragmire on the way out.

She waited until they left the royal wing of the palace to speak.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” she hissed in Link’s ear, grabbing his shoulder.

“I don’t know,” Link hissed back. He caught sight of movement at the other end of the hallway— one of the guards— and pulled his veil back up to hide his face again. “I don’t think he did it on purpose.”

“It wasn’t electricity,” Zelda said. She nodded to the guard as they went past, heading down the stairwell towards the servants’ entrance on the south side of the palace. “He felt it too, and he wouldn’t have if it was lightning. That was something else.”

“...Then I don’t know,” Link said. 

They reached the bottom of the staircase, and Link unlatched the door and let them out into the heat and light of Gerudo Town’s streets. The sun had begun drifting westward, casting blissfully cool shadows across the street, and Link was tempted to cling to them even as he led them towards the main plaza.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Zelda asked.

“Thought I’d stop and talk to the archaeologists again before we leave,” Link said. “I asked them if they knew anything about the Flame, before we were allowed into the Temple of the Triune, and they’d probably want to know about it.”

Zelda’s eyes lit up, and she grabbed his arm again, grinning. “ _Brilliant_ , Link,” she said. “We might ask them to send a message ahead to the Tabantha chapter before we leave, too— oh, I’m trying to remember, the last head of their chapter was a Rito by the name Ilari, but I _think_ he retired a few years back…”

They emerged into the main plaza, and the heat struck Link like an oven thrown open. He squinted in the brightness off the stone, shading his eyes with his hand. The space was nearly deserted, so soon after noon, and the only people visible were a couple of Gerudo shopkeepers lounging beneath their sunshades, clearly waiting for the traders and visitors to return. He tightened his grip on Zelda’s arm a moment and led the way across the plaza, into the streets on the far side, eyes peeled for the sign of the inn, for the door beside it with the stack of books in the window.

When he rapped at the door it was the Gerudo— Shaima, he remembered— who answered. Her eyes darted from him to Zelda, then widened, a bright smile breaking out over her face.

“Oh, hi!” she said. “You’re back! Is this that friend of yours, the one who wanted to see the ruins?”

“Yeah, this is Hilda,” Link said. “Hilda, Shaima.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Zelda said, offering her hand. Shaima clasped her forearm in response, and they shook. “I’m apprenticed to Aginah of the Royal Hyrulean chapter of the archaeologists’ guild.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Shaima replied. “It’s always nice to see a Hyrulean scholar with an appreciation for Triune archaeology. Why don’t you two come in, so we aren’t talking in the street?”

She stepped aside, gesturing into the building, and Zelda nodded graciously and stepped over the threshold. Link followed her quickly, staying close behind her as Zelda paused inside to gawk at the book-covered walls. He’d been right, before— she _was_ delighted with it.

“So, have you had any luck finding your ruins?” Shaima asked.

“Yes, actually,” Zelda said. “We, ah, got permission from the chieftain to do an expedition into the deep desert—”

“Well _that_ was a fast one, then,” Ashei said, from the door into the other room, and Link and Zelda both jumped. “Your girlfriend was in here just the other day asking about ruins older than the _Divine Beasts_ , and now you’re saying you _found_ them?”

“I— Link isn’t my _girlfriend_ ,” Zelda protested, though her cheeks had reddened.

“Your _friend_ , then,” Ashei said, bitingly, but she emerged to shake Zelda’s hand anyway. “Ashei. And if you’re telling the truth, you’re the _fastest_ digsite locator in the guild.”

“We had help,” Zelda said, looking at the floor. “And we didn’t really...need to excavate, the ruins we were looking for were intact, and I only needed to confirm the presence of the flame mural and an accompanying inscription.”

Ashei hummed in response.

“So why were you looking for that particular flame mural?” Shaima asked.

“My...mentor has a theory about past Calamities and the myth of the Trials of the Hero,” Zelda said. “He’s trying to reconstruct one of the _oldest_ myths we have recorded via the presence of specific ritual sites from the supposed age this myth dates to. The piece of evidence he needs to confirm it is the presence of three sites dating to twelve thousand years ago— one for each of the Triune Goddesses, each ritually marked with the Divine Flame. Link and I have located the sites for Farore, and now Din, but we’ve yet to locate Nayru’s.”

“Pretty impressive, if sloppily done,” Ashei said dryly. “You better have notes, girl, and your mentor better _publish_ that theory when he’s finished.”

“We’re planning to, trust me,” Zelda said, and Link was again impressed by the ease of her lies.

“Any theories on the location of Nayru’s temple?” Shaima asked.

“If my translation of the inscription at Din’s is accurate, it should be somewhere in either Necluda or Hebra,” Zelda said.

“That’s why we’re here, actually,” Link said, speaking up for the first time. All eyes snapped to him immediately, and he hesitated a moment, then forged on. “Would you be willing to send a message to the Tabantha chapter of the guild for us, in case they have any information?”

Ashei scowled, but Shaima’s smile brightened further.

“Absolutely,” the Gerudo said. “We can send it this evening, actually, so it should arrive before you do even if you leave tomorrow morning.”

Ashei sighed. “You’re just asking if they know anything about a Triune temple with a flame mural, right?”

“Yes,” Zelda said, nodding. “Tell them it’s Hilda of the Royal Hyrulean chapter asking, and that I and my associate should be there within the week, if you please.”

“Gotcha,” Shaima said.

She ducked back into the other room, and Ashei sighed again, though her tone was fond rather than frustrated.

“You mind giving us the location of your site before you go? You might be done with it, but Shaima and I are gonna want to give her a look-through, see if we can’t find anything relevant for our own studies,” Ashei said.

“Of course,” Zelda said.

“It’s southwest of Gerudo Town, past the first three rock outcrops into the deep desert,” Link said.

Ashei frowned. “That’s the Arbiter’s Grounds,” she said thoughtfully. “Shaima and I went out there once, and she— she’s got the sand-sense— said there might be a temple complex underground, but I thought those ruins were _newer_ than twelve thousand years.”

“The temple complex there seems to be a newer Gerudo construction on top of a much more ancient Sheikah one,” Zelda said. “We found our mural below the sanctum.”

“Just...let the Rova go out there first,” Link said.

“Lemme guess, it’s full of monsters,” Ashei said. Link grimaced, and the Sheikah nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. We’ll leave the Rova to it until it’s safe for the likes of us.”

Zelda nodded. “Thank you, again,” she said, and bowed. “We’ll need to go finish packing, but we appreciate your time.”

“It’s...no trouble,” Ashei replied. “Good luck with your third temple.”

Zelda waved a farewell and caught Link by the arm, leading him back out the door and into the streets. She turned back towards the palace, and Link went with her readily, quickly taking the lead through the maze of side streets.

“Well?” he asked, once they were out of earshot.

“It’s a start, at least,” Zelda said, tucking a lock of hair back behind her ear. “Hopefully the Tabantha chapter will have something for us— if not, we’ll have a _lot_ of ground to cover. Hebra is _enormous_ , and unfortunately the Hyrulean chapter doesn’t have much information on what ruins are present and _where_ , thanks to the snow cover in the region— most of the sites will be buried. Same trouble with Mount Lanayru, really. The climate is just _inhospitable_ for long expeditions to find and catalogue sites.”

Link winced. “...Let’s hope the Rito have something.”

They’d reached the palace by that point, ducking back in from the north side’s servants’ entrance, and Link led the way back to their quarters from there, carefully evading the guards on the way. Zelda released his arm when they reached the door, as if suddenly self-conscious, and ducked inside. He followed her quietly, pausing a moment to watch her set her stained, filthy kurta and sirwal aside, then ducked under his bed to retrieve the Slate.

Their ruined clothing was packed away into the Slate, to keep from damaging anything else in their packs— or smelling them up, for the matter. The cloth was steeped in the pervasive odor of Malice, and Link knew from experience that it took _forever_ to wash out of clothing.

His grooming kit he retrieved from the washstand, making sure it was all accounted for— washcloth, comb, tooth sticks, his own soap— before packing it back into the waxed canvas bag and tucking it into one of the side pockets in his main pack. He pulled out his green woolen travelling tunic and Akkalan-style trousers out and set them aside to pack back in at the top when he finished, then pulled out his cleaning kit and set to work on his mail hauberk, scrubbing the accumulated grime from between the links and inspecting it carefully for damage or ground-in filth.

Fabric rustled in the background as Zelda packed away her own clothing. She always took more time than he did on such things— maybe to give him enough time to clean his gear, he’d never asked.

He finished with the mail, then packed it and his gambeson back into his pack, tucking away his vambraces and gauntlets with the armor, then retrieved the Sword from its place beneath his bed and started to tuck it back into his bedroll, then paused, inspecting the hilt.

“...Hey, Zelda?” he said. “The gem in the hilt wasn’t red _before_ the Colossus, was it?”

“No?” Zelda said, glancing up at him from her packing. “It was yellow— and since Farore’s temple, it’s been green. Is it red now?”

“Yeah,” Link said, tilting the sword to show her. The gem in the hilt seemed to wink at him, light from the fading sun reflecting off its facets. 

It was silly to ascribe a personality to a sword, but it almost felt like it was teasing him, laughing at his ignorance.

“...Well, let’s keep an eye on it,” Zelda said. “We’ll have to see if it changes again after Nayru’s temple.”

Link sighed quietly and rolled it up in his bedroll, hiding it away from the world.

Then he set his travelling clothes into the top of his pack, tucked his sandals into the pouch at the bottom, pulled his boots on, and stood. The Slate went back into its leather travelling pouch, strapped at his thigh and safely out of the way. 

On the other side of the bed, Zelda straightened, rucking her pack up onto her back. She adjusted her straps one last time, then met his gaze and nodded.

The light had shifted while they worked, swinging westward and deepening to red-orange. Link met Zelda’s eyes and held them, and the princess made her way around the beds to join him. She hesitated there, just close enough to touch, and he read the uncertainty in her body language.

“...You know, if you don’t want Dragmire to come with us we can probably sneak out the South Gate now and he won’t realize until after we’re gone,” he said.

Zelda shook her head. “I don’t think it would be a good idea,” she replied. “That feeling I mentioned I had about him— it’s only grown stronger since the temple, and that _shock_ we felt earlier...no, he needs to come with us.”

“Then I suppose you’re ready to go?” he asked, and his heart leapt when she nodded.

They made their way down the stairwell, out through the main halls of the palace and down the stairs out into the plaza, which had come to life while they’d been packing. Gerudo and Hylians, Sheikah and Rito, dozens and dozens of them milling about the wide thoroughfare. The scent of cooking meat and vegetables hung in the air alongside the hubbub of voices raised to speak over one another, and Link wove through it all with Zelda at his heels until they reached clear air at the East Gate.

For a moment, it seemed as if Dragmire had forgotten their appointment. The only people near the gate were the town guards, both of whom eyed Link and Zelda thoughtfully— at least, that was how it appeared at first. A shadow peeled off from the wall— an unfamiliar Gerudo vai in a dark cloak, the hood pulled up over her head, the straps of a pack visible over her shoulder for travelling. She pulled her hood down as she approached, and it took Link a moment to recognize Dragmire; with his hair pulled back in a bun, his eyes rimmed in khol and lips stained dark, his only jewelry the simple gold-and-topaz band he’d worn into the temple, he looked almost like any of the other Gerudo women milling around the plaza.

“I almost thought you weren’t coming,” he said by way of greeting.

“We almost didn’t recognize you,” Zelda replied, and Link nodded in agreement.

“That’s the point,” Dragmire replied. “We can make the oasis by nightfall if we go now— are you two ready?”

Link glanced sideways at Zelda, meeting her eyes. She tilted her head slightly, then nodded.

Her hand crept into his a moment later, and he squeezed her fingers gently.

“We’re ready,” Link said.

Dragmire nodded and turned towards the gate without another word. Link met Zelda’s gaze again, and the pair of them hurried after him as he crossed the threshold, out into the darkening desert.


	7. Chapter 6: The Road North

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back! Right at the six-week mark, like I'd hoped. I'm still working on edits, but this arc is a big one— nearly 50k over six chapters, more than I was actually planning when I started.
> 
> Mild content warning for this arc: there's some incidental misgendering of Ganondorf during scenes where he interacts with Hylians. None of it is _aggressive_ , just ignorant, which is why I didn't put it in the tags— but if you feel it needs to be, please feel free to let me know!

“So, just how much of our daylight are you planning to spend on this?” Zelda asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Dragmire didn’t even bother to look up at her, much less respond to her question, and Zelda resisted the urge to poke him in the ribs with her boot.

He’d been missing when the first temple bell had woken her and Link that morning, and she’d searched all over the cliffside Gerudo town of Koukot before she  _ finally _ located him here, perched on the edge of one of the cliffs, carding through a length of rope. When she’d asked him, nearly half an hour earlier, he’d explained it was from the cable system the people of Koukot used to travel up and down the cliffs, and that one of the vai had asked him to repair the spell woven into it that allowed it to carry electricity. From what she’d managed to get out of him— he was largely taciturn in concentration— the cable had been snapped during a thunderstorm, and while the material damage to the rope and the thin wires braided into it had been repaired, the  _ spell _ required a mage with more delicacy than the ones who  _ lived _ there possessed.

Which, apparently, meant him. Nevermind that they had other tasks ahead of them.

“Are you even listening?” Zelda asked, circling around to the other side of him. “Link and Konora went to get the horses already, we can’t wait forever.”

“I’m trying  _ not _ to listen, thank you,” Dragmire said evenly. His eyes were closed, eyelashes painting red shadows over his cheeks in the morning sunlight. “We have plenty of time, Zelda. The first bell  _ just _ rang.”

Zelda sat down beside him, watching his face intently. She was certain he felt her stare, but his face was impassive as a stone wall. His thick braid twitched as another frisson of static electricity rolled down its length, little flickers of lightning dancing between his fingers as he ran the rope through his hands.

“The first temple bell rang almost an  _ hour _ ago,” she said when he stayed quiet. “We need to go,  _ soon _ . It’s an eight hour ride from here to Aquame Stable.”

“You’ve said so already,” he said. “And a twelve-hour ride from there to Tanagar Canyon tomorrow, and another eight hours north to Totori Village from there. We can afford another five minutes or so while I finish this working.”

“I don’t see why  _ you _ need to do it,” Zelda said. “If Lady Sabura can requisition stoneworkers from the crown, she could have requisitioned someone to repair the cable.”

Talking about their host like that didn’t sit well with her— Lady Sabura, the leader of the Vatorsa, the tribe that governed Koukot and controlled the desert gateway, had been nothing but welcoming when they’d arrived the evening before— but neither did sitting idle with the long ride ahead of them. Surely Link would have the horses ready by now; he wouldn’t want to wait very long  _ either _ .

Dragmire’s eyes opened, and Zelda stifled a gasp. His eyes glowed— flickers of emerald lightning played across his irises, and his pupils were full of light. Some part of her wondered if he could even  _ see _ her like this, or what he saw instead, if his vision was anything like hers when she saw through the eyes of the Goddess. He closed his eyes again, but his hands paused a moment on the rope.

“And why shouldn’t it be me?” he asked. “I’m here, and I can do the work. Therefore, the task falls to me.”

“Even if we  _ weren’t _ on a very important mission right now, why  _ would _ it be your task? You’re the King,  _ maintenance _ tasks like this should be beneath your notice,” Zelda said.

“The chieftain bears the burdens of her people upon her shoulders,” Dragmire answered. His hands began moving again, and Zelda noted with relief that he only had a few arm-spans' worth of rope left to go. “Why should a King bear the burden any differently?”

Zelda frowned. “...Somehow, I cannot imagine my father performing menial labor because...oh, I don’t know, a bridge somewhere broke in a flood.”

“Well then, I suppose you see the difference between a Gerudo chieftain and a Hylian king,” Dragmire said. He paused, his head tilting, then said, “Would your mother have performed such necessary tasks for her people? Your bloodline holds magic as mine does— were there not certain tasks that fell to her, and should fall to you in turn?”

Zelda scowled at him. Her  _ mother _ hadn’t— well, there had been an occasion or two, when she’d been a little girl, when her mother had left the castle to handle some task only a Daughter of Hylia could perform— but her  _ grandmother _ , according to her mother’s stories, had walked the land in service to her people. Her grandmother’s extensive notes and journals had corroborated it; when her power had returned she and her Champion had set out across Hyrule, banishing pools of Malice and purifying the remnants of it from the active Guardians as they’d knit the country back together from its shattered remnants. The corner of Dragmire’s mouth twitched upward, almost a smirk at her lack of answer, and she narrowed her eyes further.

“Not anymore,” she said, trying for haughty. “And I  _ certainly _ don’t envy you the ones that fall to you.”

Dragmire hummed in response, but didn’t answer. He’d reached the end of the rope, and as she watched a crackle of lightning leapt from his hands and into it— and down the length of it, static jumping from coil to coil before snapping off the end, nearly shocking her. He nodded, then coiled the rope back into itself and stood, dusting off his sirwal.

His eyes, when he opened them, had returned to normal.

He offered her his hand, and Zelda scowled at him but took it, letting him pull her to her feet.

“I’m surprised you didn’t take off without me, if you’re so impatient to get going,” he said.

“It’s not like we could leave  _ without _ you,” Zelda said. “Why go down to the bottom of the canyon, where there  _ isn’t _ any sunlight, and wait for you in the cold, when I could wait up here?”

“And you chose my company over poor Link’s, then?” Dragmire retorted, flashing her a grin.

Zelda smacked him in the arm. “I didn’t say  _ that _ and you know it.”

Dragmire just laughed at that one, and sprang back out of range when she went to hit him again, turning tail and bolting off along the cliff’s edge towards one of the cable hoists. Zelda growled and sprinted after him, scrambling over the rough stone towards the wooden platform. His heavy boots clattered on the wood, and he leapt adroitly over the waist-high railing and out onto the lift itself, which swayed alarmingly under his weight. Zelda balked at the edge, eyeing it and him and waiting to time her own leap.

While it wasn’t quite the same as some of the lifts in old Sheikah buildings, which seemed powered by the natural energy of the shrine or temple, the lifts employed by the Gerudo of Koukot were an impressive piece of magical engineering, especially given most of the material involved was ordinary, non-magical wood and rope. They’d rigged block-and-tackle systems to run off electricity stored in topaz and channeled through wire-laced rope cables, all of which was kept powered by the few lightning-mages who lived there year-round. 

The concept had been explained to her the previous evening by Konora— Lady Sabura’s vivacious daughter and Dragmire’s fellow mage— over a steaming mug of Tabantha black tea sweetened with East Mesa honey. They were Konora’s passion project, a work of collaboration between her and a number of engineers, some Gerudo, some members of the Sheikah expatriate community that had taken up residence in Koukot.

The lift swung back towards the cliff face again, and Zelda leapt. Her boots connected with the lowermost rail, her hips slamming into the uppermost one, and the lift lurched again alarmingly. Zelda caught hold of the uppermost rail with both hands, doubling over to cling to it— and a hand grabbed her unceremoniously by the belt and hauled her the rest of the way over into the lift.

When she looked up, it was to meet Dragmire’s piercing gaze as he scowled at her. “ _ Really _ ?” he asked. “I was going to stop it swinging so you could get on, you didn’t  _ have _ to do that.”

“Too late,” Zelda said, rolling her eyes.

Dragmire scoffed under his breath, but reached up rather than deigning to answer her, taking hold of one of the cables overhead. She caught a hint of ozone on the air. The lift lurched abruptly— and then again as the counterweight engaged, lowering them gently down the cliff face. Zelda shivered a little as the sun dropped behind the far wall, and wished she hadn’t left her cloak with Link when she’d headed off to find Dragmire earlier.

She grabbed the railing again and peered over the edge to distract herself, watching the red earth of the canyon floor rise beneath them. A small cluster of people already gathered near the entrance to the stable complex, small as ants from their height, and Zelda scanned them for a sign of Link. He should have been waiting for them by now— half an hour was plenty of time to retrieve their horses— but she couldn’t see him anywhere in the knot of people near the entrance.

The basket touched down with a bump, and Zelda climbed out over the edge before Dragmire could, darting towards the stable entrance. Link would still be in there— and wouldn’t it be typical of him to have gotten distracted talking with someone?

“Zelda!” a voice called— from  _ behind _ her. Link’s voice.

She spun on her heel to face him, and sure enough— he’d emerged from one of the other stable entrances, the reins of a horse in each hand. His chestnut mare, Epona, nosed at his shoulder; Zelda doubted she even needed to be  _ led _ , but that Link kept hold of her reins out of politeness. Her grey gelding, Mutoh,  _ certainly _ needed it— he tossed his head, jerking the reins a little, and Link clucked reproachfully at him in response.

“There you are,” she said gratefully, and hurried to join him, taking Mutoh’s reins. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“I could say the same for you and Dragmire,” Link said.

Zelda rolled her eyes. “One of the vai asked him to repair a spell on one of the cables, and he just  _ had _ to sit down and do it before we could go.”

“That was nice of him,” Link said.

“He could stand to be a little  _ less _ nice,” Zelda said, rolling her eyes. She reached up and pulled open the pack behind her saddle, retrieving her cloak and slinging it around her shoulders, relishing the warmth. Then she turned back towards the main stable entrance, ready to call for Dragmire— and froze.

Dragmire stood near the dark arch of the stable entrance, holding the reins of a massive, red-maned black horse. Zelda’s stomach did a slow, uncertain roll, and she felt her pulse speed up. Something about the tableau was... _ familiar _ , almost, uncannily so. The tall, dark horse, the dark man in his dark clothing. The way he held the reins. Something about it made her want to grab for the bow strapped behind her saddle, and she clenched her fists in her cloak to resist the urge.

And then one of the vai emerged from the stable entrance, hauling a saddle. Dragmire let the reins go slack as he moved to help her, and all at once the illusion was shattered. Zelda shook herself and clucked at Mutoh with her tongue, picking her way across to join him as Dragmire carefully hefted the saddle onto the horse’s back.

The vai who’d brought the saddle turned out to be Konora, when Zelda got close enough to recognize her, and her heart did a little flip at the sight of her. A head shorter than Dragmire, Konora was sharp-featured, with hair so deep a red as to seem nearly violet and eyes so brown as to seem nearly black, and Zelda could admit it— she was a little enamored with the woman. She was knelt in the sand, guiding Dragmire through fastening the various buckles and clasps on the saddle, but she looked up at the sound of hooves on the sand and flashed Zelda a smile.

“—Don’t go too fast tightening that girth, Mira,” Konora said, and Dragmire huffed at her, not looking up from the leather strap in his hands.

“...Do you even know how to  _ ride _ a horse?” Zelda asked.

“No, s—  _ he _ doesn’t,” Konora said.

“I do  _ so _ ,” Dragmire snapped. “I’ve ridden before.”

“A grand total of six times,” Konora said, tapping him in the shins with the toe of her boot before looking back up at Zelda. “You keep an eye on him or he’ll fall off the horse while you’re not watching, and then he’ll whine about it for the rest of the day.”

“I was  _ fifteen _ when that happened, you can let it go any year now,” protested Dragmire. “And  _ anyway _ , you were the one who wanted to race in the slot canyons and left me behind.”

“That doesn’t make it less embarrassing,” Zelda said. “I’ve been riding since I was  _ eight _ .”

Dragmire finished tightening the girth strap and stood, brushing the sand from his knees, and shot her a dirty look. “I didn’t make fun of you for never having gone seal-surfing, now did I?”

“Where would I have gone seal-surfing in Hyrule?” Zelda retorted, feeling a touch smug at the dark scowl that  _ finally _ crossed his face.

He turned to Konora instead, crossing his arms. “You said I’m supposed to check the fit of the girth again after a few minutes of riding, right?”

“Yup,” the vai replied, and patted him on the shoulder. “Just follow my directions, ask your Hylians for help if you need it, and you’ll be just fine.”

_ His _ Hylians. Zelda controlled her expression to keep from frowning. Most Gerudo they spoke to referred to her and Link like that, nevermind that she at least was a  _ crown princess _ and that neither of them were beholden to him in the slightest. And yet, just because they travelled in his company....

She was going to be glad to return to Hyrule.

She must have missed an exchange between Konora and Dragmire, because the vai abruptly pulled him into an embrace, burying her face against her shoulder. Dragmire hugged back, the pair rocking back and forth slightly. They let go after a minute, but Dragmire dropped his grip to Konora’s forearms, holding her gently and flashing a soft smile.

“Let Nabooru know I made the Gateway safe and send her my love, will you?” he asked.

“I will. You take care of yourself out there, yeah?” Konora replied, then released him.

Dragmire turned back to the horse, adjusting the way his pack lay strapped behind the saddle, and Zelda watched him a moment, then turned to find Konora watching her, her black eyes sharp.

“May I speak with you a moment?” Konora asked, and Zelda nodded, letting the vai lead her away from Dragmire, guiding Mutoh after her.

“What is it?” she asked quietly.

Konora glanced back at Dragmire, then ducked her head to speak more quietly in Zelda’s ear. “Listen, Your Highness...I wouldn’t be going behind his back like this, but if he hears he’s going to do something rash.”

“ _ What _ ?” Zelda asked.

“Two days ago, a couple of strangers passed through the Gateway leaving the desert,” Konora said. “Hylians, or maybe Sheikah. I couldn’t tell. But they hadn’t passed through the Gateway  _ into _ the desert— I would know, I keep track of every trader who enters or leaves. And they were asking after Mira in the marketplace, and after you or anyone who had  _ heard _ of you.”

Zelda froze. Suspicion welled icily in her guts. “...Were they men or women?” she asked.

“The tall one was a voe, I think,” Konora said. “He was probably a Hylian— at least, he had dark hair and dark eyes, and he wasn’t Faronese by his dress. His companion wore a hood and veil, and I never saw their face, but they walked like a vai.”

“...You think they’re Yiga,” Zelda said softly.

“What traders would ask after our chieftain and the visiting princess of a foreign nation?” Konora asked, in a tone that suggested she didn’t want an answer. “And I believe they wanted him to know, or they wouldn’t have asked so openly. So I won’t tell him, but I ask you to tell your knight and keep an eye out. As long as the three of you travel together, you’ll be in danger.”

“If they’re Yiga, we’d be in danger if we travel separately,” Zelda replied. “But I’ll keep quiet on it.”

“Thank you,” Konora said, clasping Zelda’s forearms. She ducked in a little further, pressing a kiss to each of Zelda’s cheeks, then took a step back. “Travel safely, and may your road be even.”

Zelda opened her mouth to answer, but found herself without words. Her cheeks were hot— she could feel the place where Konora’s lips had brushed, where she’d left traces of her blue lipstick behind. She stammered out a thank-you, stepping backwards and stumbling on Mutoh’s reins, and Konora laughed and waved farewell, already retreating towards the entrance to the stables.

“So, you and Konora, hm?” Dragmire asked from behind her, and Zelda spun to face him. He flashed her a wicked grin, eyes dancing.

“I— no,  _ not _ me and Konora,” Zelda said, blushing harder, and reached up to wipe at her cheeks, the heels of her hands coming away streaked with blue. “I just...is it  _ inappropriate _ for me to admire a beautiful woman?”

Dragmire snorted. “If it was inappropriate, my people wouldn’t exist,” he said. “Now, weren’t you the one who was all impatient to go? You’ve left poor Link waiting on his own while you had your little fling.”

Zelda looked back towards the path, where she’d left Link— and, sure enough, Link was already mounted, pacing Epona back and forth and clearly waiting for them. She flushed again, this time in embarrassment, and quickly mounted Mutoh, squeezing her thighs around the barrel of the horse and urging him back towards Link. Leather creaked behind her, and she kept her eyes forward. The hairs on the back of her neck already stood on end, especially as the hooves of Dragmire’s horse crunched on the sand behind her. The  _ weight _ of the thing…

Link, apparently, hadn’t elected to look away, and when she reached him his eyes were fixed on Dragmire and wide as dinner plates. His face had gone pale.

“...Zelda?” he said quietly. “Did you...see anything when Dragmire saddled up? Anything about him?”

“...We’ll talk about it when we reach Aquame Stable and can get some privacy,” she replied, just as quiet, then straightened and turned to look at Dragmire as he joined them.

Maybe the shade had blinded her, but for a moment, his silhouette looked  _ wrong _ .

Then he rode up to join them in the sunlight, and she shook herself. Nothing wrong about him at all— just Dragmire, tall and handsome and golden-eyed. He swayed uncomfortably in the saddle, like he wasn’t quite sure how he was supposed to be sitting, and he’d bitten his lip uncertainly.

“You two are going to have to ride slowly for me,” he said. “I can already tell I’m going to fall off if I’m not careful.”

“Just keep your hips loose and try to move  _ with _ the horse and you’ll be fine,” Link said. “But we’ll go slow, don’t worry. No sense wearing ourselves out on the first day.”

Dragmire grimaced. “Don’t remind me,” he muttered.

Zelda chuckled, then tapped Mutoh gently in the ribs to urge him into a trot. She heard Link yelp behind her, and then hoofbeats as the pair of them hurried to catch up. Link and Epona caught her first, riding up on her left, and Dragmire joined them a moment later on her right. He was still swaying, and a sidelong glance at him showed he’d gripped the reins so hard his knuckles went white.

She turned her attention from the boys, then, tilting her head back to gaze up at the high sandstone walls on either side of them. The morning sun painted the rock in ribbons of red and gold, deep orange and warm brown, layers upon layers flowing like water and falling over each other. High arches of the same material curved over the road, and part of her wanted to stop and marvel at the careful carvings over the faces— they looked too fine to have been graven with mortal tools. Most of the trail ran in shadow, where the rock shielded them from the growing heat of the sun, and while Zelda knew she would be grateful for it before long she shrugged her cloak higher on her shoulders and carefully rubbed her hands together, trying to banish the chill settling into her joints.

Link called a rest three hours later, as they rounded the curve of the Koukot Plateau, and they had lunch perched on one of the rocks in the sunlight, gazing down the length of the canyon until it curved out of sight again at the base of Mount Nabooru while the horses grazed on the sparse, dry grasses of the canyon. Zelda let herself relax some, closing her eyes and just listening to the wind over the stone, to the quiet creak of leather and cloth on hide as the horses moved. There’d been no sign of the Yiga— or any other travellers, for that matter— and no obstructions in their path, just the long, slow ride.

At the very least, Dragmire hadn’t fallen off his horse. She’d tried not to watch him while they rode— something about the sight of him, even out of the corner of her eye, left her unsettled— but he’d loosened up over the last couple miles, swaying gently in the saddle with the horse’s stride, looking far more comfortable than she’d have expected from a novice rider. He was settled on the rock beside her now, polishing off the flatbread and hummus they’d packed along, and he glanced up at her as if feeling the weight of her gaze.

“Something on your mind, Zelda?” he asked.

“Just thinking,” Zelda replied.

“Oh  _ no _ ,” said Link, grinning, and Zelda flicked a pebble at him.

“It’s not  _ bad _ , Link,” she huffed, then turned back to Dragmire. “We don’t actually know that much about Gerudo magic in Hyrule, and I’d wondered…”

“How it works?” Dragmire said, head tilting, and Zelda nodded. “Whatever you’re expecting, it’s simpler than that.”

Zelda leaned forward, placing her elbows on her knees and setting her chin in her hands. “Do tell.”

Dragmire shrugged and held out a hand, then flicked his wrist. A lick of flame leapt up in his palm, crackling in the air above his hand, and he rolled his hand again, letting it play up through his fingers. His irises shone with ruddy light.

“It’s just….focus,” he said quietly, and spread his hand, the ball of flame expanding to fill the bowl of his fingers. “Willpower. I  _ will _ there to be a flame here, and so there’s fire. I call the lightning, and it comes. What I will, will be, so long as I have the focus and mental strength to  _ make _ it be so.”

“Is it  _ just _ fire and lightning?” Link asked.

“Depends on the mage,” Dragmire said. “For  _ me _ , fire and lightning come most easily. Some mages can call forth the power of ice, some mages can shape stone as easily as wet clay in a potter’s hands. Some mages can do... _ other _ things.”

“What sort of other things?” Zelda asked.

Dragmire shrugged and flicked his wrist again, extinguishing the flame. “Like the gate-ward on Parapa, or the spell concealing the western gate. Like the seal in the Desert Colossus. I...don’t know how to explain them, the old knowledge is lost— it’s  _ been _ lost for three millennia. The Rova think...they  _ theorize _ there were at least two schools of  _ higher _ magic, and likely more, but all our writings on them, all of our teachings are long gone, and there’s no one left who remembers them. Or could  _ teach _ them.”

Zelda tilted her head. “Then...how did you activate the ward on the walls? We’d—  _ Link _ heard from one of the guards…”

“It seems Link’s heard a  _ lot _ of things from my guards,” Dragmire said, and flashed Link a wry grin. Link’s cheeks reddened. “And the answer to  _ that _ is ‘three days of intensive meditation on the spell-key to feel out its workings, and a blood sacrifice’.”

“... _ Your _ blood?” Zelda asked, grimacing.

“Obviously,” Dragmire said. “I wouldn’t ask someone  _ else _ to bleed for me.”

They went quiet for a moment, and then Link leaned forward. “So how long have you been a mage, anyway?”

“Since I was little,” Dragmire said, shrugging. “Nabooru and I were fighting over something stupid, I can’t even remember  _ what _ , and the next thing I remember lightning struck the courtyard a few feet from where we were standing and  _ destroyed _ the pavers. My mothers were  _ furious _ , and the very next day I was in the temple with Aunt Koume and Aunt Kotake, learning  _ not _ to call a lightning bolt over a petty argument with a friend.”

Zelda nodded. “It’s a  _ lot _ to have your power come in early, isn’t it?”

“I take it you’ve got a similar story?” Dragmire asked, cocking his head curiously. His braid spilled forward over his shoulder, and Zelda had to take a moment and catch her breath.

“...I don’t know how widely known it is, but the women of my line are clairvoyant,” Zelda said carefully, watching Dragmire’s face. He arched a brow slightly, and she blundered forward. “It’s not much— that is, I can’t  _ see _ the future anytime I like— but occasionally I’ll dream something that comes to pass, or I’ll have a  _ feeling _ about something that proves correct later. I was six the first time it happened— Mother and Father caught me breaking into the kitchens in the castle because I’d dreamt the cook had made my favorite sweets, and I wanted them so badly I’d risk a scolding.”

Dragmire grinned at her. “And did they?”

“Oh,  _ yes _ ,” Zelda said. “When Father caught me, I had powdered sugar all down the front of my dress.”

Dragmire and Link glanced sideways at each other, then burst out laughing, and Zelda couldn’t help joining them, slumping sideways into Dragmire’s shoulder and giggling helplessly. He let her, grabbing her hand and squeezing, and her heart missed a beat before she contained herself again.

Eventually the three of them sobered, and Zelda pushed herself back upright, taking deep breaths to try and calm down, to recenter herself. She released her grip on Dragmire’s hand, and after a moment his fingers uncurled, letting her go, and she glanced sideways at him before looking away, her cheeks heating.

“...Well, I think we probably ought to get back in the saddle,” Link said, shifting to a kneeling position and packing away what little remained of their lunch. “We’ve got...probably another five hours on the road, and I’d like to get to the stable before nightfall.”

Dragmire hummed in response, tilting his head back and squinting up at the sun. “...It’s midday now, so we should make it alright, as long as nothing happens before we get there.”

Zelda rose to her feet, brushing crumbs of flatbed off her lap, and hopped down from the boulder, her boots crunching on the dry gravel underfoot. Epona picked her head up and whuffled at her, but Mutoh and Dragmire’s horse ignored her until she was close enough to pick up Mutoh’s reins. The gelding shot her a look that could only be described as sulky. She ignored it, crouching beside him and tightening up his girth strap from where she’d loosened it during their rest, tapping at his stomach to make him release the breath he was holding so she could clinch it down properly. Other boots crunched behind her, and when she rose Link and Dragmire were doing the same. 

Or, rather, Dragmire was still fiddling with the girth strap. Link had already swung himself purposefully into the saddle, and was perched on Epona’s back, watching him with amusement. He glanced sidelong at Zelda as she swung up into Mutoh’s saddle, flashing her a grin, then looked back down at Dragmire with the same look on his face.

Zelda  _ knew _ that look, that silly, infatuated grin. She rolled her eyes a little and made Mutoh back a few steps, giving Dragmire a little more space to work, until at last he finished adjusting the girth strap and mounted up.

They took off down the canyon again, riding single-file as the road narrowed. The walls soared ever higher overhead, blocking the midday sun even as it swung directly above them. Zelda shucked her cloak at last, balling it up behind her in the space between her saddle and the pack as the heat increased. It wasn’t nearly as unbearable as the desert sun had been, but still— northern Hyrule Field was rarely so warm. She glanced sideways at Link as they rode, noting the way he’d loosened the lacing on his gauntlets and rolled up the sleeves of his undershirt.

The road narrowed further as they approached the bend in the canyon, where it turned north to open out in the Gerudo Valley pass, and Zelda cast an uneasy glance up at the walls overhead. Old, but well-maintained scaffolding criss-crossed the cliff faces, of the same style as the walkways and lifts in Koukot, and high overhead banners fluttered in the breeze blowing up from behind them. She thought she saw movement, up between the boards, but they were moving too quickly for her to be certain.

And then they rounded the bend in the canyon.

An ungodly shriek and a bugling horn split the air, followed immediately by an arrow that slammed into the canyon wall and missed Link’s head by inches. Epona reared. Zelda screamed, and Mutoh balked.

There was a flash of red in front of her. Mutoh reared up on his hind legs and unseated her. Zelda hit the dirt hard on her hip, rolling quickly to get out of the range of his hooves. Scrambled back upright.

Bokoblin. Just a red one, thank Hylia, but she could smell the stink off it now, rotted flesh and the acrid stench of Malice. It shrieked at her, the same ungodly sound from before the arrow had hit. The horn blew again. Zelda braced herself to run.

Mutoh kicked out, and Zelda flinched as his steel-shod hoof slammed home into the bokoblin’s skull. The beast toppled backwards. Zelda darted forward, catching his reins and vaulting up into the saddle. Her hand closed on her bow.

She put two arrows through the beast’s skull in as many breaths. Wheeled Mutoh about with her knees, an arrow on the string already, scanning for the other bokoblins. A ‘blin  _ never _ travelled alone, not like lizalfos. She smelled Malice as the first bokoblin, now off to her left, burst into a cloud of foul black smoke.

There were four of them. No, five— the fifth was on the scaffolding back up the canyon, stuffing its horn back into a loop on its slapdash belt. Two of the others had split Link off, driving him and Epona off the road. They circled warily, brandishing wooden spears, but didn’t draw too close. The remaining two backed Dragmire towards the one on the wall.

The one who was now drawing a shoddy, bent-stick bow. It couldn’t possibly have much power to it— but Dragmire was totally unarmored.

Zelda raised her own bow, sighting down the length of her arrow at it. The limbs flexed, recurve tips straightening out as she reached full draw, thumb resting at the anchor point on her jawline.

She loosed.

The arrow slammed home in the bokoblin’s forehead, slamming it clear off the scaffolding to the canyon floor, where it burst into smoke. One of the bokoblins menacing Dragmire squawked and turned towards her, brandishing its weapon.

_ Hylia _ . It had a  _ sword _ . An old and rusted thing, yes, but still a broadsword. She backed Mutoh a pace or two away, nocking another arrow.

Dragmire snapped his fingers.

There was a thunderous crack, and Zelda  _ felt _ the lightning bolt hit more than she saw it. Mutoh  _ screamed _ beneath her, backing away, and Zelda caught his reins and reeled him back in, murmuring soothingly as her vision cleared. The bokoblins— both of them— were streaks of ash. Link whooped, and another bokoblin screamed, and as she turned to look Epona’s hooves came down on the last bokoblin’s skull, shattering it like old pottery. It burst into smoke beneath her, and the mare danced in place. Link patted her neck, cooing approvingly.

“Are you both alright?” Dragmire asked.

“Just fine,” Zelda said. The last of the black spots faded from her vision.

“Same here,” Link said. With an expert hand, he guided Epona back up the embankment and onto the road, pausing at the black streaks where the bokoblins Dragmire had incinerated had stood. “It’s just...these weren’t  _ here _ when we came through the pass last week.”

Dragmire nodded. “The Davali— the tribe that controls the East Mesa— usually keeps this pass free of monsters. It’s unusual to see them here in any numbers, much less the sort of numbers that...form packs and assault travellers.” He paused, peering around and studying the cliffsides above them. “...For them to be out like this, there must be a larger pack encamped somewhere nearby.”

“...Well, it’s a good thing  _ we _ found them, instead of some other travellers,” Zelda said.

“They’ll be back,” Dragmire said. “If they’re attacking travellers  _ here _ —”

“Then that means they’ve had success at this location before,” Link said. “They already know this is a good ambush spot.”

“And that means a large enough pack for them to strategize,” Dragmire said. “I’ll need to send a message to Lady Sumati when we reach the stable, let her know there's a pack somewhere on the Koukot Plateau. She’ll sort it out.” His brows had furrowed, and the horse shifted underneath him, as if sensing his discomfort.

“...Then we should hurry,” Zelda said. “The sooner we get to the stable, the sooner it gets dealt with.”

Dragmire nodded, and wheeled his horse about without another word, urging it into a canter. Link  _ hupped _ at Epona, and Zelda urged Mutoh after them, hurrying to keep up.

They made the pass without incident, emerging into the Regencia river valley. The high sandstone walls fell back and away, and Zelda tilted her head back, gazing up at the basalt upthrust of the Great Plateau away to the west, the weathered dark rocks and the brilliant green vegetation on the Hyrulean side of the River Regencia. The Digdogg Suspension Bridge arced over the water, linking the columns of stone that rose from the riverbed, unworn by time. Dragmire crossed first, but Link paused, waving Zelda onward. 

Mutoh pranced nervously as they approached the wooden boards, as if he hadn’t made the same crossing a week before.

“Easy, boy,” she murmured, patting his neck, and squeezed his barrel with her knees, encouraging him on.

He tossed his head and stepped carefully up onto the boards, then trotted forwards willingly, towards where Dragmire waited at the first column. Epona’s hooves rang on the bridge behind them a moment later, and Mutoh seemed to settle, his ears twitching back before swivelling forward again. Zelda clucked at him approvingly.

They crossed each span in that manner, until at last Mutoh’s hooves reached the dirt path on the Hylian side of the gorge, and Zelda let herself relax, knowing her horse wouldn’t throw himself off the bridge in his nervousness anymore. Epona joined them a moment later.

“So, how far out are we?” Dragmire asked, sitting back in his saddle.

“Not far,” Link said. “There’s a fork in the road up ahead, on the other side of that grove, and we’ll take the north fork there and be at Aquame Stable a little while after that.”

“And we  _ should _ be there by sundown, too,” Zelda said, glancing up at the sky. The sun had begun to sink westward, settling atop the Great Plateau. Before long it would disappear behind it, casting the land to the west in shadow long before night actually fell.

Something about the thought made her tense. If a pack of bokoblins had taken up residence on the other side of the bridge, then the odds of an encounter with other monsters increased— her grandmother had theorized that higher populations of monsters meant an increased presence of stal-beasts, and they were  _ certainly _ correlated to the flocks of keese that had plagued Hyrule in the decades before her birth. Of course, they only rose after nightfall— but, well.

The sooner they reached the stable, the better.

She urged Mutoh into a trot again, guiding him up the trail, and the boys followed after her. None of them were speaking, now— Link seemed on alert, his keen blue eyes scanning the sides of the rode, while Dragmire sat uncomfortably in his saddle, clearly wanting the ride to be over. Zelda didn’t envy him; he’d be sore after such a long ride, especially since he wasn’t used to it, and it wouldn’t get any better from here forward.

The grove at the fork in the road surrounded them. Zelda turned them left, leading them up the northern fork and around the curve of the hill, until the ground levelled out and the trees fell back, and the familiar Hylian motif of the horse-headed stable rose seemingly from nowhere, like a guardian spirit watching over the tiny community that sprung up around it. Just from the trail she could count a few small houses, tucked back in amongst the trees, and a slightly larger complex around the stable and inn itself.

Aquame Stable had been quiet when they’d passed through the week before, and that didn’t seem to have changed in the interim— and at this time of evening, the only people near the front of the stable were the stable owner, a short, broad woman in the red-and-cream vest, and one of the stablehands, who straightened and spat out the blade of grass he’d been chewing as they approached. His eyes went wide, and Zelda couldn’t help a smirk— he must have caught sight of Dragmire.

They dismounted in front of the stable, and Zelda made her way up to the counter, where the stable owner was waiting. The woman looked her up and down, dark eyes gleaming in the last light of the sun, then darted over her shoulder as Link and Dragmire joined her.

“Well, what can I do for ya, honey?” she asked, leaning forward.

“We need to board three horses overnight, and beds for three at the inn,” Zelda replied.

The woman nodded, reaching under her counter for the ledger. “It’ll be sixty rupees for that— three overnight boards and three beds.” She paused, head tilting, and shot a look askance at Link before returning her gaze to Zelda. “ _ Or _ , for ten rupees extra, I can offer you and your Gerudo friend a private room, so you ladies don’t have to worry about sharing sleeping space with a  _ man _ .”

Dragmire made an incredulous noise, which he disguised as a cough, and when Zelda glanced back Link had put a hand over his mouth. His blue eyes were shining with barely-suppressed laughter.

“—Ma’am, I would  _ never _ ,” he choked out. “Hilda and Mira are dear friends of mine, nothing more.”

The stable owner squinted at him suspiciously, then eyed Dragmire, who was still coughing. Link thumped him on the back.

“...Alright, then,” she said. “Three  _ single _ beds in a private room, then?”

“Yes, please,” Zelda said. Her ears burned with embarrassment, and she covered it by fumbling for her wallet, pulling three red rupees from the pouch and dropping them into the stable owner’s hand. 

The woman counted them out, then nodded and dropped them into what sounded like a wooden box. “Your room will be the first one past the left entrance, when you head in,” she said, and turned away, bustling back inside.

Link burst out laughing the second she was out of earshot, slumping against Dragmire’s arm. Dragmire himself offered Zelda a thin, tired-looking smile, and dropped his arm around Link’s shoulders.

“I can’t  _ believe _ she thought you were a—” Link started.

“I’m  _ Gerudo _ , what else would I be?” Dragmire asked, rolling his eyes.

“ _ I _ can’t believe she didn’t notice the...you know,” Zelda said, reaching up to touch her jawline, where the sideburns sat on Dragmire’s face.

“I can,” he said. He pulled his braid forward over his shoulder, fiddling with the end of it. “...A lot of the time, Hylians only see what they  _ expect _ to see. And I’m  _ not _ going to shave them unless someone comments on it.”

Zelda snorted. “It was the jewelry that did it, and you  _ know _ it.”

“That doesn’t make it less ridiculous,” Dragmire replied. He paused, then stretched, releasing Link and wincing. “I think I’m going to...go lie down for a bit. Please wake me when there’s dinner.”

And then he disappeared back into the stable, leaving Link and Zelda on their own. Silence fell between them. Link sighed quietly and padded over to join her, bumping his shoulder against hers.

“...So,” he said, at last. His voice was low, conspiratorial, as if he expected to be overheard. “You saw it too, right? At Koukot?”

“I don’t know  _ what _ I saw,” Zelda said. “It was like...like the shape of him was wrong. The angles of his silhouette.”

Link nodded. “The Sword got hot when he saddled up— I felt it through the sheath.”

“It hasn’t done that before?”

“No. Never before, and not in his presence— and it cooled off as we rode, but…”

“...I suppose we’ll just have to keep an eye on it,” Zelda said, and bit her lip. Her stomach did a slow, nauseous roll. Dragmire on horseback, and the Sword growing hot…

There was a faint pressure, right at the base of her skull, and Zelda sighed.

If she did not dream tonight, she would be amazed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter should be up on my usual schedule, three weeks from now, so I'll have time to wrap up my edits and start work on the next arc. In the meantime, feel free to stop by my Tumblr— I've got some art for this fic posted over there, and my asks and messages are always open!
> 
> Related, but if anyone knows any active discord servers for the Triforce Trio (or would be interested in starting one?), please let me know, I'd like to talk more with some other Zelda fans with similar interests.


	8. Chapter 7: The Village of Wings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks! I'm working my way through the edits on this arc a little more slowly than last time (work keeps getting in the way), and while that shouldn't be too big a concern overall, I may have to shift my posting date to Saturday for the next couple of months as my schedule shifts.
> 
> Also: for those of you who expressed interest in a discord server (and those who didn't, it's open to whoever wants in), I couldn't find one so I took the liberty of [ setting one up myself ](https://discord.gg/vj8VUCy). It's just me in there right now (as of 8/21/2020), but feel free to drop in and say hi!

The view coming over Kolami Ridge, with Lake Totori spread out beneath them, made Ganondorf want to weep. The afternoon sun shone brightly off the limestone columns upthrust from the dark surface of the lake, glinted off the small whitecaps kicked up by the wind sweeping down from Mount Hebra to the north. The grass rippled under that same breeze, thick and lush and verdant, save for where the pale dirt road cut through it, leading his eye down to the copse of trees near the lake’s edge, to the now-familiar horsehead of a Hylian stable peeking out over the canopy.

Ganondorf had seen more water in the last two days, he thought, than he’d seen in his entire life in the Tantari Desert. Not just Lake Totori— the River Regencia, which had kept them company on the road north, until they’d turned to the west and left its banks behind. The thin, shimmering line of Tanagar Creek far beneath them when his horse, Zharu, had balked on the longbridge over Tanagar Canyon and needed to be coaxed across. And countless other pools and streams over the last day alone, as they’d ridden through the Tabantha uplands, their pace  _ finally _ relaxed after the hard ride from Aquame to Tanagar the day before.

It was a lot, he thought, and shifted uncomfortably in the saddle, wincing as his back and hips protested the movement.

“So what’s our plan?” he asked, glancing over at Link and Zelda as the pair came abreast of him.

“We’ll board the horses at the stable first,” Link replied. “Can’t take them across to Rito Village, there’s no accommodations for them there.”

Zelda snorted. “Rito don’t  _ ride _ , why would they  _ need _ to?”

Ganondorf winced, disguising it with another shift in his saddle. Typical Hylians, never calling places by their actual names. “...And once we cross to the village?”

Link glanced sideways at Zelda. “...Get accommodations for  _ us _ settled at the inn, then find the archaeologists?”

“Better that way than the other way around,” Zelda said, though her tone spoke of reluctance. “I’d rather not visit the archaeologists and  _ then _ learn the inn is full.”

“Frankly I’m surprised you  _ don’t _ want to go haring off into the mountains on whatever rumor the archaeologists give you, and no sleep whatsoever,” Ganondorf huffed.

Zelda rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t dignify him with an answer.

That was just as well. Even  _ she _ , after three days of riding, had to be too tired for her usual barbs, and he didn’t feel like fielding them anyway even though he’d initiated.

The ground levelled out beneath them, and Link took the lead as the path narrowed into the copse around the stable. Ganondorf shivered as the shade dropped the temperature and pulled his cloak closer in around him, trying to block out the chill. It didn’t help much, even with the trees deadening the wind coming off the lake— the air in Tabantha was much cooler than he was used to, and the damp chill had settled into his bones even after he’d traded his linen sirwal and kurta for the woolens favored by the highland tribes. He’d be retrieving his rubies from their hiding place in his pack when they stopped somewhere private enough, that was for certain. The enchanted gems would keep him at least a little warmer.

The copse opened up again on the stable grounds, and Ganondorf slid gratefully out of the saddle, hissing a breath between his teeth as his thighs throbbed in protest. He tightened his grip on the pommel and let his head rest against Zharu’s shoulder, took deep breaths that smelled of horse as he took stock of his physical condition.

Thighs— aching from the long ride, from gripping the barrel of a horse for hours at a time.

Hips— sore, and the muscles stiff when he adjusted his stance to take some of the pressure off.

Lower back— one knotted mass of pain, the muscles tight and aching from holding himself steady in the saddle. He took another deep, tooth-gritted breath, then released his grip on the saddle and dug his thumbs into the muscles, biting his lip to keep from venting his pain verbally.

It didn’t help much.

“Apologies, Zharu,” he murmured, and the horse whuffled and swung her head around to nose at his shoulder in response. He reached up carefully, running his fingers through the thick, smooth fur of her cheek. “...Let’s get you boarded and out of all this gear, shall we?”

Link and Zelda were already at the stable’s exterior counter, their horses— Epona and Mutoh, he had learned over the last few days— cropping the grass behind them, and he released Zharu’s lead to let the mare graze with them and joined them at the counter, trying to disguise his limp. The stable owner, a tall, thin man with a crop of dark hair, looked him up and down as he approached. His lip curled ever so slightly, half-hidden under his heavy moustache.

“You with them, miss?” he asked.

Ganondorf bit back a wince. “I am, yes.”

“Right,” the man said, then returned his attention to Link. “That’ll be sixty rupees to board the three of ‘em, and I’ll need a name.”

“Mark it down under  _ Hilda Passari _ ,” Zelda said, and dropped her wallet on the counter.

The stable owner’s eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed, eyeing her suspiciously. “...Ain’t often a young woman claims to be the head of a little caravan like this, miss.”

Zelda’s eyes narrowed in return. “Are you questioning me, sir?”

“Now listen here, missy—” the stable owner started, putting a hand flat on the counter as if he intended to go over it.

“I think you should listen to her,” Link said. He reached up, tapping his fingers on the sword belt that crossed him from shoulder to hip. “You don’t want this sort of trouble.” 

His eyes had narrowed uncharacteristically, and he’d drawn himself to his full height— not that it did much, given his slight stature— but the stable owner paused, his grey eyes darting between the two of them.

Ganondorf took a half-step back, and then another, grabbing for Zharu’s reins as Zelda paced closer to the counter, her shoulders gone tight. There really  _ wasn’t _ any need for him to stay and watch this— if Zelda wanted to pick a fight with half the stable owners they dealt with, that was her trouble. The gravel crunched frostily underfoot as he made his way around the side of the stable towards the back, where the entrance to the horse stalls lay on every Hylian stable he’d visited so far.

A group of stablehands had congregated around back, perched on hay bales or rough-hewn benches, and all of them looked up at the sound of Zharu’s hooves on the gravel. Ganondorf studied them a moment— all young men, and all Hylians, of the same thin, pale-skinned stock as the stable owner— and he grit his teeth to keep his lip from curling at the sight of them. How the Rito  _ tolerated _ this Hylian incursion on their territory was beyond him. This casual establishment of a Hylian stronghold  _ so close _ to the heart of their homeland…

His people had sacrificed lives to  _ eliminate _ such incursions.

“You here to board a horse, ma’am?” one of them said, and Ganondorf assessed him casually. Smaller than the others, close to Zelda in height, with a thick crop of fair hair poking out from under the band of his cap. His pale cheeks were flushed.

“I am,” he said, instead of rolling his eyes.

The boy trotted over, and Ganondorf handed over Zharu’s reins, then began unloading his pack from behind her saddle.

“Where’s the rest of your troop, ma’am?” one of the other boys called.

“Bit early in the season for Gerudo traders, isn’t it?” piped up another.

“I’m on pilgrimage,” Ganondorf replied dismissively. 

He was grateful he’d left his hood up; most vai on a pilgrimage veiled in the presence of Hylians, as an indicator of disinterest in men’s advances. Not that they often listened, he thought, eyeing the gang still clustered on the hay bales. Half of them eyed him with considerable interest, the sort he remembered vividly from Hylian merchants at the Ranel Bazaar. The  _ unpleasant _ sort.

The sort that had resulted in him and Nabooru being banned from the bazaar for a season, after she’d thrown a punch that broke the jaw of a visiting merchant.

Hooves crunched on the ground behind him, and Ganondorf hiked his pack onto his back and turned around, sighing with relief at the sight of Link and Zelda. Link looked slightly ashen, and his left hand gripped his sword belt tightly. Zelda, on the other hand, was flushed angrily, her cheeks and the tips of her ears bright red. She practically flung Mutoh’s reins into the face of a second stableboy, jerking roughly at the straps of her pack.

“...I take it you got it handled, then?” Ganondorf asked.

Zelda practically growled at him in response. Her eyes darted over his shoulder towards the stableboys, then back up to his face, and her brows furrowed more deeply.

“She browbeat him down to forty rupees for doubting her,” Link said.

“He  _ deserved _ it,” Zelda snapped back. 

Ganondorf couldn’t help chuckling, moving over to help her unload her gear. Link had already shouldered his own pack, presumably while Zelda had been... _ negotiating _ their price, and he simply handed Epona’s reins off to a second stablehand.

“Can’t say I disagree,” Ganondorf said, shrugging, and unfastened the last strap. The pack slipped sideways off Mutoh’s back.

Zelda huffed quietly, slinging it up onto her back before it could hit the ground, then passed Mutoh’s reins off to a third stablehand. “You shouldn’t,” she said. “Are we ready, then?”

Ganondorf nodded, then glanced over at Link, who nodded in return, and Zelda hooked her elbow through Link’s. She shot another glance back over her shoulder towards the stablehands, green eyes gone sharp and furious, then hooked her arm through Ganondorf’s as well and tugged. He yelped, stumbling over his own feet and hardly able to catch himself before their boots hit the gravel in front of the stable. Zelda’s hand tightened a little further on his arm.

She changed their course, then, leading them across the clearing to the opening in the trees on the far side of the copse, through which Ganondorf could see the lake. The ground dropped off sharply, plunging hundreds of feet down towards the wind-whipped surface. A slender rope bridge linked the shoreline to the first of the three pillars that rose from Lake Totori’s surface. The wind slashed through Ganondorf’s cloak like a knife as they emerged from the trees, and the rope bridge swayed gently underfoot, the boards creaking softly with every step.

“So, what’s the point of  _ this _ ?” Ganondorf asked, pulling gently on his arm.

Zelda released her grip, still scowling. “...I didn’t like the way  _ anyone _ in that stable looked at you,” she said. “The stable owner made a... _ comment _ about young Hylian girls travelling in the company of Gerudo vai, and I—”

“It got ugly,” Link said, cutting her off. “Let’s leave it at that.”

Ganondorf grimaced and looked away, raising his eyes to look out over the lake, towards Totori Village instead.

The village rose along the sides of the outermost— and tallest— pillar in the lake, all dark wood against the pale stone. Buildings sat perched on small outcroppings, colorful curtains waving in the breeze off the lake, all connected by wooden boardwalks and platforms that wound about the face of the pillar, small as a child’s plaything yet at that distance. As he watched, a red-feathered Rito launched themself from one of the spars of stone high above, white-and-blue banded wings wide, and climbed quickly away into the air. 

Then they reached the first of the three pillars between the shore and the village, and the thin, sparse cedars rose around them to block the view. They blocked the wind, too, which Ganondorf was grateful for as they crossed. The second bridge turned northwards, swaying beneath them, and he bit back a grimace as they crossed. The water below had looked gold where the light touched it, but from above it was a dark, bottomless blue, and the wind-whipped caps on the little waves looked chilly and unpleasant. Ganondorf redirected his gaze upwards, to the end of the bridge and the second pillar.

The next two bridges were mercifully short, and within minutes they’d crossed beneath the wooden archway that marked the entrance to Totori Village. No guards watched the entrance, and Ganondorf cast an uneasy glance back across the lake, to the plumes of smoke marking the stable’s place hidden in the trees.

Zelda tugged lightly at his arm, and Ganondorf startled, glancing down at her. She stared back up at him, keen green eyes searching his face.

“...Is something wrong?” he asked.

“I was about to ask you that,” Zelda said.

Ganondorf sighed quietly. “I’m alright, just...tired. It’s been a very long day already.”

“You don’t have to come with us to the archaeologists’ if you’re too tired, y’know,” Link said.

“We  _ are _ stopping at the inn first,” Zelda added.

“I said I’m alright,” Ganondorf huffed. “You two don’t need to coddle me— it shouldn’t be any trouble to sit through your meeting, and you may need my insight anyway.”

Zelda turned her head away from him, back over to Link, who glanced up at Ganondorf, then turned back to Zelda and shrugged. She shrugged in return, then released their arms, adjusted her pack, and stepped forward.

“Well, then there’s no sense in just  _ waiting around _ ,” she said, not even looking back over her shoulder.

Ganondorf met Link’s eyes, startled, then hurried after her.

They hit the stairs almost immediately— first one set, then another as they drew closer to the pillar, bringing them up onto the boardwalk— and Ganondorf grit his teeth, ignoring the way it made his thighs burn. He tilted his back, looking up at the walk overhead, just out of his arms’ reach, then back down— at the little alcove at the base of the pillar. At the little statue tucked into the alcove.

His lip curled reflexively.

Ganondorf had seen his first statue of Hylia only a few days before— the Aquame Stable had a little one tucked back out of the way, with a shallow bowl before it, full of apples. This one was much the same, if larger, the graven image of a woman with wings folded behind her and arms folded over her chest, her eyes closed and a small, benevolent smile on her thin lips. His first impression, two days before, had been confusion; the Triune were never depicted in mortal form, and depictions of spirits and demi-goddesses shifted from mural to mural, but Hylia always seemed to be a round-faced Hylian woman, long hair falling about her shoulders. Her worshippers often draped her in flowers or left her offerings of fruit at the base of her statues, and this one was the same as every other.

Here, in the stronghold of the Rito, the mere sight of the little statue had him taste bile in the back of his throat.

He shook himself and turned away from the statue, following Link and Zelda up the boardwalk.

The first building they reached was draped in turquoise banners trimmed with yellow, and if the white woven crescent moon hadn’t declared it the inn clearly enough, the name of it was embroidered onto them in both Hylian and Gerudo script:  _ Swallow’s Roost _ . A grey Rito with wings banded like a hawk’s waited outside, watching them with brilliantly golden eyes as they ducked inside. The air inside was  _ warm _ , blessedly so, and Ganondorf sighed quietly in relief and pulled his hood down to enjoy it.

A second Rito, this one with warm pink feathers, stood at the counter. She— at least, Ganondorf was fairly  _ sure _ it was a she— brightened at the sight of them, and flipped quickly through a ledger on her side of it, grasping an ink pen in the furl of a wing.

“Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “Welcome to the Swallow’s Roost, how can we help you?”

“We’ll need accommodations for three, for...two nights, I think?” Zelda said. She glanced back over at Link, dark brows furrowed.

“Maybe just one,” Link said hesitantly. “We’re not exactly sure at this point— we’re supposed to be heading up into the Hebra Mountains sometime in the next couple days.”

“Well, I don’t envy you  _ that _ ,” the Rito said. The feathers at her neck fluffed, revealing glimpses of yellow down underneath. “The northern passes aren’t even fully open yet, and Pondo’s Pass only  _ just _ cleared for the season.” She paused, shuffling papers in her ledger. “...Well, fortunately for the three of you, that means we aren’t booked up yet and I can let you pay per night.”

“Well, it’ll be tonight for certain,” Zelda said. “Is it alright if we pay up front for tonight, and then settle a second tomorrow as needed?”

“Absolutely,” the Rito said. She flipped another page, clicking her beak thoughtfully. “Three guests for a single night...will this be the standard beds, at twenty rupees each, or would you like to upgrade to a down bed? They’re lovely after a long day on the road.”

“The standard beds will be fine, thank you,” Zelda answered, then pulled out her wallet and began to rifle through it. “Three beds at twenty rupees a night comes to sixty rupees, right?”

The Rito nodded, and Zelda reached into her wallet and pulled out three red rupees, which she handed over to the Rito. Pink flight feathers curled around them, and the Rito’s wing pulled back out of Ganondorf’s sight, though he heard the rupees clatter into a cash box on the other side of the counter.

“Alright,” the Rito said, and flipped through her ledger again. “We have three open beds together on the eastern wing— the first three by the outer wall. You can pull back the partitions between them if you’d like to treat them as one room instead of three.”

“Thank you,” Link said.

They ducked into the eastern wing and located the beds easily enough; one on the east-facing wall, the other two perpendicular to it on the north wall. Curtains hung from the ceiling, dividing up the wing into a half-dozen separate sleeping spaces. Ganondorf helped pull back the two between their beds, then tugged the ones separating them from the main room shut a moment and set his pack down at the foot of the east-facing bed. Link and Zelda had already begun rummaging through their own packs, and he ignored them to open his own and pull out his rubies from a hidden pocket.

The Rova had made certain he’d packed an appropriate mage’s kit when he left: his topaz diadem, a pair of sapphire earrings small enough to keep him cool— while they’d hunted for the sapphire diadem Koume had sworn was in the archives, they’d been unable to find it, and while the earrings were too small to effectively channel ice with, they would serve their purpose— a pair of amber bracelets for a quick shield, if he could remember his stone-work in time, and a ruby brooch and earrings for warmth in the mountains. He left the earrings where they were, instead opening the brooch and turning it over to inspect the sigil on the back.

Passive spell-stones often needed attunement to the wearer, and this one was no different, only radiating heat when it had been attuned and activated. He opened the brooch and— ignoring Zelda’s startled yelp— pricked his index finger on the pin, then smeared the resulting bead of blood across the glyph on the back. The sigil lit up gold, and within the minute the little wound had closed and the ruby had begun to radiate heat.

“What was  _ that _ ?” Link asked, and a shadow fell over Ganondorf as he came to look.

“Feel for yourself,” Ganondorf replied, and closed the brooch before tossing it to him. 

Link yelped and juggled it a moment, as if he couldn’t bear to touch it for more than a few seconds at a time. “It’s  _ hot _ !”

“That’s the  _ point _ ,” Ganondorf said, and snatched it the next time it went airborne, replacing the pin holding his cloak closed with it. Warmth bloomed in the cloth, and he closed his eyes a moment to enjoy it. 

Link pouted at him, and Ganondorf resisted the urge to laugh at the sulky look on his face. Part of him wanted to reach up and kiss it off— or to inspect Link’s hands, to make sure he hadn’t burnt himself— but he held himself back from it.

“But—” Zelda started.

Ganondorf shot her a look, then held up his finger. “One drop, Zelda. It didn’t even hurt.”

“It was still startling,” Zelda said defensively, then stood and straightened the skirt of her overtunic. She made her way over to his bed and leaned against his shoulder, inspecting the brooch. “So how is this one different from the diadem?”

“Spell-stones are passive, foci are active,” Ganondorf said. Her eyes lit up as he said it, and he sighed through his nose and settled back into the mattress. “Once a mage attunes a spell-stone, the magic  _ in _ the stone continues to do a single task— in this case, providing heat— until it runs out of energy. A  _ focus _ , on the other hand, is an active conduit that helps focus and shape power in a way the mage wielding it desires.”

Zelda hummed thoughtfully. “And...does it  _ always _ take blood to attune one?”

“Usually,” Ganondorf said, shrugging. “But only when it changes hands. As long as  _ I _ use this one, it’ll draw from my power, but the next mage who handles it will need to attune it to herself.”

“And what about foci?” Zelda asked.

“They don’t  _ need _ attunement, but the longer a mage uses the same focus the more responsive it is,” Ganondorf said. “Now, I’d  _ love _ to get into this—” he said, cutting off her next question, “—but I thought you wanted to meet with the archaeologists before sunset.”

Zelda glanced sideways at the windows, then swore— the sky had begun to redden as the sun sank towards the western horizon. “I thought we had more  _ time _ —”

Link was on his feet in an instant, swinging the curtains open, and Zelda darted out past him. Ganondorf pushed himself back to his feet, biting back a hiss as his back protested, and hurried after her, letting Link close the curtains behind him as they headed out of the inn.

They travelled up and up around the central pillar, passing more shops on the first few levels, and then past Rito homes, past an ancient Sheikah shrine on one outcrop, glowing blue against the sunset. Past more houses, and then a council-house, until  _ finally _ , in the highest ring, Zelda brought them to a stop outside of a small building tucked against the pillar. Ganondorf leaned against the stone a moment, wincing as his thighs screamed in protest. His knees trembled a little, and he grit his teeth against the pain.

Zelda rapped at the post beside the door. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

Silence.

Then the curtain covering the door was pulled back, and an owl-faced Rito peered out at her. His feathers were deep brown and tan, his wide round eyes were deep red, and something about him— about his profile, the flat disc of his face— was  _ incredibly _ familiar. Ganondorf frowned, and the Rito’s head bobbed as he looked over Zelda’s head to study him and Link.

“And who are  _ you _ supposed to be?” he asked. His voice was low and harsh, raptorial.

“Hilda Passari of Hyrule,” Zelda said. “I’m a member of the Hyrulean chapter of the Archaeologists’ Guild, here on behalf of—”

“Aginah, right,” the Rito said. “Medli got Shaima’s letter last week. Didn’t say you’d have a Gerudo with you, though.”

“I...it’s complicated,” Zelda said. “Listen, is Medli  _ here _ now? I need to speak with them urgently.”

“Yeah,” the Rito said. He ducked back into the building— and then a moment later pushed the curtain aside again, scowling at them. “Are you coming, or what?”

“Yes, we’re coming,” Ganondorf said placatingly. 

He put a hand on Zelda’s back and pushed her gently forward, ignoring the dirty look she shot him as she ducked through the curtain. Link followed at her heels, and Ganondorf ducked in after him, stooping a little to get under the low eaves.

The inside of the building was larger than it had seemed from the outside— it was built back into the rock a little way, Ganondorf realized— and lit by warm yellow lamplight. The interior walls, against the rock, were lined with shelves, each containing a neatly organized rack of tubes he recognized as scroll storage. A second Rito stood at a table near the middle of the space, a scroll unfurled across their wide right wing. They were smaller than the owl-faced Rito, with a slight, falcon-like build, and pure white plumage cast yellow by the lamp— which, he supposed, meant this one was a woman. Most bright-feathered Rito he’d met were. She glanced up as the curtain fell shut, golden hawk’s eyes darting back and forth.

“Let’s see,” she said, setting down the scroll. “One tall, dark-haired Hylian in pink, and one smaller one in green. Guess that means you’re Hilda and Link?”

“Medli?” Zelda asked. The Rito— Medli— nodded, and Zelda inclined her head in greeting. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Medli said brightly. “I got Shaima’s letter a couple of days ago— she was  _ really _ excited about your find in the Tantari, so I’m looking forward to working with you as well.”

“Thank you,” Zelda said, nodding her head again. “I appreciate your help, really— I’m not especially familiar with the history of the Hebra mountain range, and we need all the help we can get.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all!” Medli chirped. The owl-faced Rito coughed, and Medli frowned in his direction. “...Well, maybe it’s a  _ little _ trouble. You said you were looking for Sheikah ruins ten millennia or older, right?”

“Closer to twelve, I think,” Zelda said. “I’m sorry, do you mind if we sit down? It’s been a  _ very _ long day on the road.”

“Yes, of course,” Medli said, bounding back in a flurry of pale feathers.

There had been a chair behind her at the table, which Ganondorf hadn’t noticed, and which Zelda was quick to occupy. He resisted the urge to glare at her back and sank to the floor instead, wincing at the ache in his thighs as he went. The floorboards beside him creaked as Link settled down as well, the warm bulk of his weight pressed against Ganondorf’s left hip, between Ganondorf and the door as if on watch. The owl-faced Rito settled against the opposite wall, his crimson eyes studying the two of them.

“So,” he said. “We already knew Hilda had a Link, but Shaima’s letter didn’t say  _ anything _ about a Gerudo travelling with them. They pick you up in Parapa?”

“The Rova asked that I accompany them, after what they found in the Desert of Mysteries,” Ganondorf replied. He narrowed his eyes, squinting harder at the Rito. “Where do I know you from, anyway?”

The owl-faced Rito shrugged, the feathers over his shoulders rippling. “Went on a trade expedition to the Ranel oasis once, a couple years back,” he said. “Name’s Komali.”

“Dragmire,” Ganondorf said, inclining his head in turn.

The name was ash and grit on his tongue. If he’d been home in Parapa, the Rova would have presented him before his people and let his old name burn away like old paper in the desert sun, leaving only  _ him _ behind. And instead, here he was, pushing against the shell of the girl he’d once been like a chick too weak to break out of the egg.

He inclined his head a little further and broke from Komali’s gaze, studying the well-worn wood of the floor instead.

Paper and feathers shuffled, and he glanced sideways in time to watch Medli pull a number of scrolls from their shelves and set them down on the table. She unfurled one, which Ganondorf couldn’t see from his angle, but he was willing to bet it was a map.

“So, tell me more about your research project,” she said. “Shaima said  _ something _ about your research being focused on a set of ruins of a particular age, but she wasn’t very  _ clear _ about it.”

“Right, the temples,” Zelda said, propping an elbow on the table. “My mentor, Aginah, has been working with the women of the royal family for several decades to reconstruct the  _ history _ of the Daughters of Hylia, their connection to the Calamity, and their association with the Hero who wields the Sword that Seals the Darkness. We’ve managed to piece together the  _ official _ records that survived the Great Calamity, enough to have a fairly clear picture dating back to the Hyrulean Civil War three and a half thousand years ago, when the Daughters of Hylia lay claim to the Throne of Hyrule. The records  _ before _ that are muddy— they seem to point to the Daughters running a priestesshood involved with Hyrulean Triune worship, though we have  _ evidence _ that they were royalty around the time of the construction of the Divine Beasts— but the only lead we have on where they  _ came _ from before that seems to tie in to the legend of the First Hero.”

Medli cocked her head, golden eyes sharp. “Go on,” she said encouragingly.

Ganondorf took a deep, quiet breath, trying not to react too outwardly. The taste of copper bloomed again on his tongue, and he bit the inside of his cheek to ignore it. His heart had increased its pace, without his noticing, but he could feel it now thundering in the hollow of his throat.

“According to this legend, a very long time ago the world was smothered beneath the clouds of Calamity’s darkness,” Zelda said. “When all hope seemed lost, a youth led by a messenger of the goddess Hylia descended from the sky to bring light to the land. It’s said he conquered three trials of flame, and in return was gifted a golden power he used to drive back the darkness. We thought this was only a legend, of course— at least, until an excavation on the Great Plateau uncovered a  _ second _ temple under the ruins of the Temple of Time, which was  _ filled _ with murals elaborating on this myth. And in them, this hero is  _ always _ mentioned in conjunction with a ‘spirit maiden’, who— if my mentor’s theory is correct, may be the  _ first _ Daughter of Hylia. However, we weren’t so certain how  _ true _ this legend is, so my mentor decided the best course of action would be to search for the sites of the three ‘trials of flame’ mentioned in it.”

“And you think you’ve found one?” Medli asked. “...I’m sorry if I sound skeptical, this just doesn’t sound  _ plausible _ . Any story that old,  _ without _ hard evidence…”

“There were partial stanzas of a poem in the main hall of the Temple of Time that seemed to describe a particular location in the Faron jungle, so I secured Link’s assistance and requested permission to take an expedition and see if a ruin or ritual site actually existed there,” Zelda said. “And there was— an entire ancient Sheikah complex, I believe contemporary in construction to the Divine Beasts, built over what appeared to be an  _ older _ sanctum dedicated to Farore, complete with a brazier and a flame mural on one of the walls.”

Link shifted beside Ganondorf, putting a little more weight against his hip and thigh. “That one had a poem, too, and it led us to a second temple in the desert.”

His eyes, when Ganondorf glanced back at him, were bright. Dancing, even, and something about the look, about his  _ tone _ , made the copper taste in Ganondorf’s mouth grow stronger. He turned his gaze to Zelda, who had leaned towards Medli, her face open and excited.

“We  _ believe _ the third temple in this set, the one dedicated to Nayru, may be somewhere in the Hebra mountains,” she said. “Unfortunately, there are virtually  _ no _ records of Sheikah sites in the region, and I just don’t know enough about the history of Hebra to even  _ begin _ to guess. Which is why I’m here to ask for your help.”

Medli shrugged, ruffling the feathers on her shoulders. “It can be hard to tell in Hebra— the snow covers everything almost all year, and there aren’t many Hylian or Sheikah structures that are still visible under it, aside from a couple of the glowing shrines and the big tower over Pondo’s Pass. I suppose you’ve got a map of those locations yourself?”

“Of course,” Zelda said. “I wouldn’t dream of heading up into Hebra without a good map.”

“Right,” Medli said. “I’ve got a map here—” she patted one of the still-furled scrolls— “of all the known and recorded Sheikah or Hylian sites in Hebra. Most of the  _ shrines _ are located on the northern side of the mountain range, but a lot of the recorded building sites are on the southern faces, especially around Lake Kilsie and the Sturnida Basin, so those will probably be your best bet.”

“Or Mount Corvash,” Komali said. “The Buteo flock came in off the south slopes two days ago, and they’re reporting an avalanche on the southwest slope.”

Medli frowned. “That’s...but Corvash almost  _ never _ sheds snow cover, especially not  _ this _ early in the season. We might just have to go check that out.”

“Would you?” Zelda asked.

“Absolutely,” Medli said. “We were planning on flying out tomorrow morning, so...how does meeting around midday sound?”

“That would be  _ wonderful _ ,” Zelda said.

“Gives us time to look into cold-weather gear, too,” Link added. “I don’t think cloaks are going to cut it up there.”

Medli shook her head. “You’ll want to head down to the Brazen Beak and get outfitted. It’s pretty cold for Hylians— and Gerudo— up on the slopes, and the passes  _ just _ opened up last week.”

“We’ll take that under consideration,” Zelda said. “...Though I suppose whether we’re headed up to Mount Corvash or over to Lake Kilsie will determine how much and what  _ degree _ of cold-weather gear we’ll need—”

“Why don’t we take a look at the map I’ve got here, so you can make a more educated guess?” Medli asked, unrolling her scroll. “I’ve got a couple of known sites I think might interest you, if Corvash is a bust.”

Ganondorf sighed quietly and stood, wincing as his legs screamed in protest. Link yelped, scrambling to brace himself, and Zelda glanced back at them. He froze a moment, uncertain. His hands fisted in his cloak.

“...I need some air,” he said quietly. “And I don’t think the four of you really need me for your research, so will it be alright if I step out a moment?”

Zelda nodded. “Yes, that’s alright.”

“Do you want me to walk you back down to the inn?” Link asked. The floorboards creaked again as he shifted his weight into a crouch, ready to stand.

“I’m alright, but thank you,” Ganondorf said.

He slipped out without another word, before any of the others could protest. The night air had chilled further, and it  _ bit _ when he stepped out from behind the curtain and into the dark, in the way the winds of the desert never did even in the dead of a winter night. Ganondorf pulled his cloak more tightly around him and flipped his hood up, relishing the warmth of the spelled ruby around him, then tilted his head back and gazed skyward. The moon was rising over the hills to the east, round and heavy in the sky— it would be full in the next day or two, he could feel it. Could feel the faint pull of power from it, and from somewhere in the north.

He turned his gaze northwards, to the line of the mountains upthrust against the fading sky, the snow pink and fading to white as the moon rose higher. The scent of ice was in the air, and he reached up to touch the ruby brooch almost unconsciously, then closed his eyes and began to reach.

The curtain flew open behind him, spilling warmth and voices out into the evening, and he jumped, snapped out of his distraction. There was a rustle of feathers immediately behind him, and then Komali sprang up onto the railing beside him. Komali’s pupils had gone wide and black, and he cocked his head, studying Ganondorf in a way that suggested he might stoop at any moment and sink claws in.

“What?” Ganondorf asked.

Komali tilted his head the other way. “...You’re not just some girl your priestesses asked to go along with, are you,” he said. “Like the girl in there is Princess Zelda, not some common archaeologist.”

“Why humor her, if you know?” Ganondorf asked. “Because I  _ finally _ figured out where I know the name  _ Komali _ from. My mother arranged trade agreements with your father, when he assumed the head of your council, and I recognized your face.”

“Dealing with Hylian royalty is a pain in the ass,  _ Lady _ Dragmire,” Komali said.

Ganondorf snorted. “It’s  _ King _ now, actually, but you’re absolutely right.”

Komali shuffled his wings. “My condolences,” he said.

“Thank you,” Ganondorf replied. He hesitated a moment, then turned his back to the mountains and leaned against the rail beside Komali, tipped his face up to stare at the night sky.

“So why are  _ you _ playing entourage to Hylians, anyway?” Komali asked.

Ganondorf sighed quietly. “...Because the Rova said I have a destiny, and  _ somehow _ it’s connected to that girl in there, and the boy who carries the Sword.”

Komali’s beak clacked, and Ganondorf couldn’t help jumping. “So  _ that’s _ why Dinraal’s patrolling the Tanagar Canyon again,” he said.

Ganondorf nodded. “We sighted Farosh over the highlands starting about a month ago, when the moon was full, and the spirits of the desert are...restless.”

“Hylians,” Komali said. “Them and their Calamity, always causing trouble for the rest of us.”

“Sometimes I wonder how you tolerate them, setting up their stables inside your borders and bringing their goddess into your home,” Ganondorf said, glancing sideways at Komali. “My grandmother had the last remaining statue of Hylia thrown out of Parapa in the fifth year of her reign.”

“They’re not easy to get rid of,” Komali said. “And they’re decent trade partners, when they aren’t trying to scalp our merchants and—”

“And undermine trade deals with other nations, right,” Ganondorf said. “I’m a little surprised they haven’t tried to move into Totori Village and try and enforce their laws on you yet.”

Komali clacked his beak again. “They could  _ try _ , but I don’t think they’re interested in us the same way they are you and the Faronese.”

Ganondorf grimaced, like he’d chewed a raw kahve bean. “Count yourself lucky, then,” he said. “I’ve met exactly  _ one _ Hylian man who wasn’t an invasive know it all, and—”

The curtain opened again, spilling more light and heat, and Link emerged from the building to shiver in the cool night air. He looked tired, Ganondorf thought, and he stretched and yawned almost as the thought occurred.

“Hey,” he said through the yawn, blissfully unaware of the glance Ganondorf shot Komali, of the way the Rito arched a brown-speckled brow. “Zelda’s gonna be in there a while yet, do you wanna head back to the inn now and get some sleep at a  _ reasonable _ hour?”

“Alright,” Ganondorf said, and pushed himself back upright, then met Komali’s gaze. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow morning?”

“If everything goes well,” Komali said.

Ganondorf nodded and made his way back over to Link, letting the Hylian hook his elbow around his arm and lead him back down the stairs. His knees wobbled slightly, legs aching with every step, and Link’s grip tightened.

“Are you doing okay?” Link asked. “I saw you were limping earlier.”

Ganondorf grimaced. “I’m...a bit sore from the ride, honestly. You two may have to leave me behind, if you’re planning to go hiking the slopes of Hebra.”

“Or we’ll wait until you’re up for it,” Link said. “Zelda and I’ve talked about it, and we’ll go together or we won’t go at all.”

“What, afraid you won’t be able to make it through without me?” Ganondorf asked.

“Hey, sometimes it’s handy to have a second sword around,” Link said, grinning.

Ganondorf’s cheeks warmed, and he looked away before the blush could rise any higher. Link tightened his grip slightly on his arm, his hand warm through the fabric of Ganondorf’s kurta.

“But seriously,” Link said, and his voice had gone gentle, “we’re not going anywhere without you.”

“...I appreciate it,” Ganondorf replied, equally quietly.

They’d reached the inn by that point, and Link pushed aside the curtain that had been lowered across the entrance to keep out the night’s chill, waving Ganondorf inside ahead of him. The inside of the inn was warm and quiet, lit with the same warm yellow glow as elsewhere in the village. The pink-feathered Rito was still at the counter, and he studiously avoided her gaze as he and Link made their way back into the east wing. Link pulled back the curtains to let them in, and Ganondorf noted that someone had placed a lamp on the table beside the middle bed while they were out, lighting the space with a soft yellow glow and giving off a gentle warmth against the cool air of the inn.

Ganondorf all but collapsed onto his bed when he reached it, his legs finally giving out. He grimaced, kneading at the muscles of his thighs and ignoring the ache he was trying to soothe. And the way Link watched him, his expression gentle. His lips were slightly parted, but it took him a moment to speak.

“...I think the tea shop a couple levels up was still open,” Link said quietly. “If I go up and get something to eat or drink, do you want me to bring anything back for you?”

“Yes, please,” he said quietly. “Just something light, and maybe an herbal tea if you can get one. Something that won’t keep me awake.” He sighed and let his shoulders slump, then met Link’s eyes fully. “I really am tired tonight.”

“I’ll see if they have chamomile,” Link said. “My mom always swore by it for helping sleep.”

“I would appreciate it,” Ganondorf said.

Link paused, and Ganondorf saw him tense, his eyes flicking down before he met Ganondorf’s gaze again. Saw his hands tighten momentarily, as if he wanted to reach out.

He leaned in instead, pressing a kiss to Ganondorf’s forehead, where his circlet would usually sit. Ganondorf stifled a gasp and gripped the fabric of his sirwal. His skin tingled where Link’s lips touched it— and  _ kept _ tingling even after he pulled away. His blue eyes had gone soft.

“I’ll be right back, I promise,” he said.

And then he turned on his heel and ran for it, yanking the curtains closed behind him.

Ganondorf stared at the place he’d been in shock, watching the fabric sway. He reached up carefully and touched his brow. The skin still felt strange, where Link had kissed him, but his fingers found nothing on inspection and he pulled them away, studying his fingertips. His heart was pounding.

“Nayru  _ preserve _ me,” he breathed, and rolled over, pressing his face into the sheets. His cheeks had gone hot— when had he started blushing? Goddesses,  _ please _ let it have been  _ after _ Link had left.

No man, he thought, should  _ ever _ have such power over him.

When his embarrassment subsided, he rolled over onto his side and turned to face the wall, away from the little oil lamp lighting the space. He let his hand slip into his pocket, running his fingers over the cool, smooth surface of the orb from the Colossus.

The Rova had taken precisely one look at it and known it immediately for a mage’s focus. A focus for  _ what _ , they weren’t sure— the stone was unfamiliar to both of them, and not mentioned in any of the records they recalled. It wasn’t luminous stone, or any of the elemental ores; none of them shone blue and violet with every little shift of the light. At certain angles the surface seemed chased with writing, at others it was nearly transparent, at others endless blue and violet and falling ever inwards. Kotake had wanted to keep it in the Temple. Koume had insisted he take it with him, after he told them how he’d acquired it.

After all, if such a focus had fallen into his hands in such a manner, it  _ must _ have been his by right.

His eyelids slipped closed.

* * *

_ He stood in the entry hall of the Desert Colossus. The space was filled with red and gold light, washed and rippling, but the space  _ burned _. Black and magenta smoke boiled up through the pavers. A pulse underfoot. His boots on stone as he hurried down the stairs into the innermost sanctum. The air shuddered as he laid a palm on the cool-burning door to the Chamber of the Flame, as the light spilled out around him. _

_ Stone walls, burning. Stone floor. The dark shadow of a cape against the bright, and fiery hair. An opening in the flames, through which blackness burned. _

_ The King stood before the brazier, his back to him. _

_ “Why did you come here?” he asked, and Ganondorf had no answers. _

_ The King turned and stared at Ganondorf with his own eyes. Held open his own hands— in greeting? In supplication? Warning? _

_ “You should not have come, Son of Din,” said the King. “This is no place for the likes of us.” _

_ Ganondorf opened his mouth to speak, and the burning blackness behind the King began to uncurl. Dark, iridescent scales on scales on scales, pressing the rent in the flames ever wider. White claws hooking over the edge of it, and white teeth, a maw boiling with liquid Malice. The King spread his arms and closed his eyes, those eyes which were also Ganondorf’s and he began to fall— _

_ “Ah,” said a voice behind him, cool and shivering steel, and a hand landed gently on his shoulder. “ _ There _ you are, young master.” _


	9. Chapter 8: Cinder and Smoke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I'm three days early. I know.
> 
> Also, I think I'm going to have to be done apologizing for chapter lengths. This one's over 9k, and with the way things are shaping up chapters over 8k are going to be the rule rather than the exception.
> 
> Enjoy the kissing.

Link’s eyelashes were half-encrusted with frost when he cracked open an eye in the morning chill of their room at the Swallow’s Roost. Fine ice crystals crackled, and he reached up and rubbed at his other eye, smearing chilly water across the back of his hand. This certainly wasn’t the  _ first _ time he’d woken up like this— the loft he and his siblings shared, back home in Akkala, was often chilly first thing in the morning in the winter and early spring. Especially on mornings he really  _ needed _ to be up early.

Spring in Tabantha, it seemed, wasn’t much different. He grit his teeth and reluctantly poked his head out from under the pile of quilts covering him, peering around the curtained space, his breath steaming gently in the air. The light filtering through the curtains to the outside world had that pale, translucently gold quality to it that spoke of a chill the heavy wool shielded them from, the kind that would burn off later in the day as the sun got higher.

Neither Zelda nor Dragmire had stirred yet, he noted as he sat himself up a little higher. Dragmire, on the far side of the space, was an invisible heap under the pile of blankets on his bed that shifted slightly with every breath. Zelda was closer to him, and had the blankets tucked up under her arm, leaving her shoulders, head, and neck exposed. She must have come back to the room after he’d gone to sleep the night before, because he didn’t remember her returning, and the fingers that clutched the sheets were ink-stained. Her long hair was unbound, streaming darkly across the pillow.

He cautiously uncurled himself from under the blankets, then winced as his feet touched the wooden floor— it was  _ icy _ , he hadn’t thought about how cold it would be with air pressing up from underneath— and pulled them back under the covers, leaning his upper body over the side of the bed to grab a pair of socks from his pack. They were cool to the touch, too, and he sighed and leaned out again to grab his tunic and trousers and pull them under the covers as well. No sense in getting out of bed if he couldn’t take some of his heat with him. He dressed under the covers, then slung himself out of bed and fumbled for his boots and his waterskin.

Neither of the other two had roused, by the time he finished lacing up, but one of them made a little noise when the floorboards creaked as he put weight on them to stand, and he paused again, studying the sleepers. Zelda hadn’t so much as shifted, he noticed, and he padded his way across to Dragmire’s bed, pausing near the curtain and watching to see if he moved.

The uppermost quilt, a pale, floral-patterned thing, twitched, and dark fingers emerged from beneath the leading edge to pull it down so Dragmire could peer out. His golden eyes were sleepy, but they fixed on Link’s face with an intensity that made the tips of his ears burn.

“You’re up early,” Dragmire said softly.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Link replied, and crouched next to the bed so they were face to face.

“I don’t mind,” Dragmire murmured, sitting himself up a little and wincing. “I...didn’t sleep well last night, anyway. It’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Link said. His face  _ definitely _ felt hot, and he couldn’t keep from looking down, away from his gaze.

“You don’t need to apologise,” Dragmire said. “It had absolutely nothing to do with you...ah, you know,” he said, and when Link peeked back up his cheeks had darkened in a blush.

Link immediately dropped his gaze back to the floor, feeling his cheeks redden further. “Oh, um. That’s...good, I guess?”

“It was the nicest part of the evening, anyway,” Dragmire said. Link could hear the grin in his tone.

“I— ah, I was going to head to the tea shop again for breakfast,” he said hastily, tripping over his words. He couldn’t look up, not with Dragmire’s eyes on him. “Was there— can I get you anything?”

Dragmire chuckled, and the wood of the bed creaked gently as he shifted his weight. “Some kind of hot black tea, lightly sweetened, and whatever foods are hot when you get there,” he said. “My wallet’s in the outer pocket on the right side of my pack, take that with you when you get my calabash.”

Link hesitated— Hyrule’s crown paid for his and Zelda’s expenses on their travels— but Dragmire’s expression was insistent, if still sleepy, so he stooped and retrieved the wallet and the dried, hollow gourd casing most Gerudo favored over waterskins. He paused once he’d straightened, tugging at the drawstrings on Dragmire’s wallet. “Just for  _ your _ food, or…?”

“Zelda paid for my accommodations, I can buy the two of you breakfast,” Dragmire replied.

“...Alright,” Link said, and tucked the wallet into one of his pockets. “I’ll be back soon, okay?”

“I’ll be waiting,” Dragmire replied, with a slow, easy grin, and Link felt himself blush all the way to the tips of his ears.

He ducked out through the curtain and into the main wing of the inn instead of answering, shaking his head and trying to get the cool air to disperse the heat of his blush, then glanced around the room a moment. Another set of curtains on the far end of the room were pulled closed around another bed, but aside from that— and the Rito in the entrance, a male with feathers like the sunrise— there was no one else around.

The air outside was bracingly cold, and Link had to shake himself again to remind himself where he was. There were  _ no _ goats in the barn who needed attention during kidding, not here. He turned his face eastward, watching the sun creep over the top of the ridge and wash the sky pink and gold, painting warm shadows across the stone of the central pillar.

He turned again and headed up the shallow staircase towards the next level, taking the steps two at a time— Rito legs were so  _ short _ in comparison to Hylians'— until he reached the next stretch of boardwalk, where a string of shops were. He passed the general store, with its orange banners and curtains, and ducked into the red-bannered tea house beside it, brushing aside the door-curtain and breathing in the smell of warm baked goods and tea. A Rito with dusky gold feathers stood behind the back counter, staring off into space, but he perked up some at the sound of Link’s footsteps on the wooden floor.

“What can I do for ya this morning?” he asked.

Link dropped Dragmire’s calabash on the counter with a hollow  _ tock _ . “Black tea in here, please.”

“Any specific varietal?” the Rito asked, his head cocking to the side. “We’ve got a bunch of blends, the list’s in the book on the counter if you wanna look.”

Link hadn’t noted the book when he came in, but he turned his attention to the slim volume then, flipping the cover open. The first page was a bunch of herbal blends— mint, rosehips and dried apple pieces and wildberries, liquorice roots and swift violet blossoms, ginger and aspalathus bark and warm safflina— and he studied them a moment before flipping to the next page. Here were the black teas: a couple of plain ones with names he recognized from maps of Tabantha, and more blends.

“What does the black with warm safflina and cinnamon taste like?” he asked.

The Rito turned and snagged a tall glass jar off one of the counters behind him, then popped the cork lid off and offered it to Link. “Here, have a smell,” he said. “It’s sort of spicy— this blend’s got cloves and allspice, too, and the safflina makes it  _ perfect _ for cold mornings.”

Link closed his eyes and breathed deeply, tasting the scent on the back of his tongue. Warm spice, almost like the mulled apple cider his mother would prepare on chilly evenings back home.

He thought of the way Dragmire had held his cloak tight around himself the previous evening, his complaints of a chill at the Tanagar Stable.

“This one, please,” he said.

“Alrighty,” the Rito said, taking back the jar of tea and scooping up the calabash. “Anything else I can get for ya?”

“I’ll need two more teas, but do you mind if I keep looking before I make a choice?” Link asked, turning to the next page.

“No problem,” the Rito said. “We’re slow at this point in the morning, take your time.”

Link hummed in reply, then paused, studying the next page. “...What are ‘green’ teas?” he asked, looking up.

“They’re leaves from the same plant that makes the black tea,” the Rito said. He’d moved back behind the counter, and Link could smell smoke now— a low fire, he guessed, for heating the water for tea. “When we harvest ‘em, the leaves for the black stay out overnight and react with the air, so they’re dark and more bitter, while the greens come in and get steamed or smoked or sun-dried to dry ‘em out.” He puffed up a moment, the feathers at his neck and shoulders rising and falling. “My flock runs the harvest at Gisa— that’s our sling pellet green there in the book, and in the swift violet blend.”

“I think I’ll try that one, then,” Link said. Zelda liked swift violets some mornings, always called them a ‘pick me up’, and the way the description in the book called Gisa green  _ floral _ made him think of her. “And...a rosehip and wildberry for the third one?”

“Absolutely,” the Rito said. He turned, snagging down two more jars, then held out his other wing. Link handed over his and Zelda’s waterskins, then made his way a little further down the counter, studying the baked goods tucked into baskets.

The first two baskets were full of pastries the size of his hand, each overflowing with wildberry jam and cream. The third basket held nutcakes, baked in palm-sized rounds, each with chopped walnuts and what looked like a caramel drizzle over the top. The fourth basket had what Link took for personal-sized egg tarts at first glance, but at a second look had meat in them, and melted cheese in a fine, crackly layer over the top, and emitted a savory smell that had his mouth watering.

“Getting anything for breakfast?” the Rito asked, and Link looked up immediately. The Rito was watching him, brown eyes keen. He could hear the water beginning to dance in the background as it moved towards a boil.

“Yeah, I think...two of the wildberry pastries, a nutcake, and...what are these, egg tarts?”

“Sort of? They’re egg, goat’s milk and cheese, and Hylian smoked ham,” the Rito said. The kettle rumbled louder, and he lifted it and poured deftly into Zelda’s waterskin, the water filtering through a fine muslin bag containing the loose tea as it went.

“Three of those too, I think,” Link said. “And one of the loaves of bread, please.”

“Gearing up for an expedition?” the Rito asked, setting the kettle back down and letting the rumble start up a little louder.

“Probably,” Link said. “We’re supposed to be looking for a set of ruins up in Hebra.”

The Rito clucked his tongue. “Better watch out when you head up that way,” he said. “Basht and Namali’s flock came in off the south slopes two days ago, and apparently there’s a storm brewing up on the northeast face of Mount Hebra. That won’t be fun for you Hylians on foot if you get caught in it.”

“We’ll keep an eye on the sky, then,” Link said, and when the Rito bobbed his head at him, he unrolled the waxed cloth he usually packed their food in and selected his pastries, tucking and folding so nothing got squished or ground into the fabric. “So how much do I owe you?”

“Sixty rupees,” the Rito answered, setting the waterskins and calabash on the counter.

Link took them back, slinging the waterskins over his shoulder and looping the leather thong on the calabash through his belt, then opened Dragmire’s wallet and peeked inside. Mostly silver rupees— he hadn’t been kidding about being able to buy them breakfast, it seemed. He probably could have bought out the entire tea shop. He pulled out a purple rupee and two blues instead, dropping them into the Rito’s wing.

“Thank you,” he said, flashing the Rito a grin.

“Hey, no problem,” the Rito said. “Enjoy your breakfast.”

Link ducked back out onto the main boardwalk, then glanced back at the eastern hills. The sun was fully up now, glittering on the water, and he turned and headed a little further up, the waterskins warm against his back. The Brazen Beak was only a door further up, and while its brown curtains were pulled shut still, he could see flickers of movement in the small gaps between them and the wooden frame of the building. They’d be open soon enough.

He turned and hurried back down the steps towards the inn, but stopped before he reached the entrance, listening. Dragmire and Zelda’s voices carried clearly in the thin, cool air— not muffled by the curtains closing the inn’s wide windows, but by distance. He took a couple more steps and rounded the corner of the central pillar, and the flight landing a staircase down came into view. Zelda was seated at the edge of it, her feet dangling off the end of the platform, with Dragmire perched behind her, a comb in his hands. There was a lump in Link’s throat— the morning light made both of them beautiful, limning Zelda’s loose hair in gold and setting Dragmire’s ablaze, even with it still tied in a neat bun at his nape.

“—Why you’d leave it loose  _ anyway _ , if you weren’t planning to wash it,” Dragmire was saying.

“Having it back all the time pulls at my scalp,” Zelda replied, sounding irritated. “Don’t  _ tug _ , my hair’s not nearly as thick as a Gerudo’s, you don’t need to  _ rip _ the knots!”

“I’m  _ not _ ,” Dragmire huffed back. “You’re just tender-headed.”

The wood of the flight deck creaked underfoot when Link put his weight on it, and Zelda jumped— and then yelped, when the comb tugged at a knot in her hair. Dragmire hissed at her, then glanced over his shoulder himself, his face lighting up. Zelda tried to turn as well, wincing as the comb tugged again.

“You know, this would be easier if you sat still,” Dragmire said dryly. “How did breakfast go, Link?”

“Just fine,” he replied, sitting himself back down on his bed and setting the waterskins and food down. “Got a couple of wildberry pastries, a nutcake, three savory egg tarts, and tea for each of us. What did you two get up to while I was out?”

“ _ Someone _ called my hair a bird’s nest,” Zelda muttered.

“Well, you shouldn’t have slept with it loose if you didn’t want tangles,” Dragmire said, and tugged at the comb again, finally managing to work it through the knot. “You’re lucky I didn’t make you wait until Link had time to take care of your mop.”

“Oh, like you don’t have...what, four feet of hair?” she retorted.

“Oh, but I know how to take care of it,” Dragmire said evenly. “It comes down when I have time to wash it before I put it back up again, and stays up when I don’t. Not  _ all _ of us can depend on servants, even if we  _ are _ nobility.”

Zelda huffed and rolled her eyes. “I  _ do _ think it would be easier to deal with if it were shorter, but Father would  _ explode _ if his daughter did something so unseemly as to cut her hair above her shoulders.”

“Yeah, there’s something to be said for short hair,” Link said. His own was just barely long enough to pull back in a ponytail— he’d kept it that length since he was a young teen, when he first started training with the sword.

Dragmire hummed, running his comb through Zelda’s hair again and working through the tangles. “Shame you aren’t Gerudo,” he said evenly. “You could crop your hair to the scalp and no one would tell you off for it, if you really wanted it gone.”

“Then why keep yours long?” Zelda asked. “You’d look more masculine with it short.”

“I happen to  _ like _ wearing my hair long, thank you,” Dragmire replied. “So, Link, tell us about the teas.”

“Got you a black tea with warm safflina in it,” Link said, passing over the calabash. “And a green tea with swift violet for Zelda.”

Zelda’s eyes lit up as he passed her the waterskin, and she uncorked the top and inhaled the fragrant steam, her eyes falling closed. “My mother had a green tea imported once, when I was a little girl,” she said. “I didn’t like it very much back then— it just tasted like  _ grass _ .”

Dragmire snorted, taking up the comb again and beginning to divide her hair into sections to braid. “Was it out of the Rayne Highlands, by any chance?

“Yes, actually,” Zelda said. She blew gently on the tea, and Link watched the steam curl off in the wake of her breath. “Why do you ask?”

“The last time I paid a visit to the Risoka tribe they’d traded with one of the Rito flocks for a crate of Rayne green tea,” Dragmire replied. “It really does taste like grass.”

Zelda chuckled, then took a sip, her eyes falling closed a moment. “...Thank you, Link,” she said, and flashed him a smile that warmed him down to his toes.

“Hey, it’s no trouble,” he said.

She hummed in response, then leaned over again, ignoring Dragmire’s yelp of protest, and snagged the food out of Link’s lap before he could unwrap it. Link let her, leaning over to snatch up the nutcake before either of them could and flashing Zelda a cheeky grin. She narrowed her eyes at him, then blew a raspberry in response and picked up one of the wildberry pastries, pausing to lick the cream and jam off her fingers before digging in. Dragmire finished off Zelda’s braid, flicking it forward over her shoulder, then reached over her other shoulder and grabbed the other pastry. He took a bite, eyeing Link contemplatively.

“Good choice, here,” he said. “So, someone refresh me on our plan for approaching the temple. I went to bed well before the pair of you did last night, I’m sure I missed something.”

“We’ll talk to Medli and Komali again before we make any other preparations,” Zelda said. She took a sip of her tea, then gestured towards her field journal with the waterskin. “I cross-referenced my grandparents’ notes with Medli’s map of the Hebra mountains, and at this point it seems  _ likeliest _ that the temple is located somewhere in the Sturnida Basin.” She paused again, turning her gaze north. “...And yet, somehow I can’t shake the feeling that the avalanche on Mount Corvash is significant.”

“Seems to me as if it would be another one of your signs,” Dragmire said thoughtfully. He paused, as if he were going to say something else, and Link glanced up at him.

And stilled. Dragmire had paused to lick a rivulet of escaped wildberry jam and cream off his wrist, and he froze and met Link’s gaze as he did in a way that sent heat  _ directly _ to Link’s face. He ducked his head again immediately, and Zelda burst into full-blown laughter. Dragmire joined her a moment later, chuckling quietly, and Link’s ears began to burn.

“You two are horrible,” he said.

“Thank you,” Zelda said brightly. There was a thump— Dragmire had collapsed on the platform, laughing harder. His eyes were screwed tight, and his face was flushed.

He really  _ did _ have a nice laugh. Link looked away from him adamantly, hands fisted in the wool of his tunic to keep from tackling him outright.

“Medli said we were supposed to meet up late this morning or early this afternoon, right?” he asked, looking up at Zelda.

Zelda held her hand up a moment, signalling him to wait, and took a sip of her tea before she answered. “Right, she asked that we meet her and Komali up on Revali’s Landing later this morning,” she said. She glanced east, to where the sun had begun its climb higher in the sky. “I’d say we have some time yet, but they should be back fairly soon.”

The landing creaked as Dragmire sat himself back upright. “Well, then. Shall we take our tea and head to the landing to meet them?”

“It certainly wouldn’t  _ hurt _ ,” Zelda said. 

She recorked her waterskin and slung it across her chest, then stood. Dragmire scooted back a bit to give her more space, and Link hopped to his feet as well, offering her a hand as she maneuvered around Dragmire’s legs. Dragmire rose a moment later, dusting off his sirwal. His eyes met Link’s a moment. Link glanced away, feeling his cheeks heat, and tried to ignore Zelda’s quiet, amused snort. She let go of his arm and slipped past them, making a beeline for the walkway, and Link hurried to keep up with her.

“...So, out of curiosity, what was our plan for an  _ approach _ to the temple?” Dragmire asked as he caught up on Zelda’s other side. “The terrain’s going to be rougher, and unless we’re going to retrieve the  _ horses _ it’s going to be a  _ long _ walk just to the foot of the mountains from here.”

“Travel gates?” Link suggested, shooting Zelda a look.

“I know it’s not your favorite, but I think it’s probably our best bet,” Zelda replied. “I don’t believe there’s manned stabling for horses at the Hebra trailhead lodge, and the terrain around Lake Kilsie is too rough for them anyway, so I’d rather not risk taking them and then having to  _ leave _ them somewhere unattended—”

“Hold on,” Dragmire said. “Travel gates?”

Zelda’s eyes lit up. “Right, you don’t know! So, you know all of those little glowing buildings—”

“The Shrines of the Trials, yes,” Dragmire said. “There’s one outside Parapa— Nabooru and I overloaded the entrance panel on it to get access once.”

“Yes, those—  _ how _ did you manage to—?”

“Levered a knife into the mechanism and ran an electrical charge into it until the gate opened.”

“I wasn’t aware they  _ could _ be opened without the Slate— what was inside?”

“Some kind of electrical puzzle,” Dragmire said, shrugging. “Someone had already solved it and all the gates inside were open, so we just took the lift back out again.”

“Ah. Well, that  _ would _ have been my grandfather, the Slate’s log says he made frequent use of that Shrine—”

“Zelda, the gates,” Link said, gently redirecting her.

Zelda rolled her eyes, but the look on her face was fond, and Link grinned back. “Yes, the gates.” She turned back to Dragmire. “So I think we already explained that the Slate folds space enough to contain objects put into it, but I don’t think we ever got into the  _ other _ mode of folding space it has.”

Dragmire’s golden eyes narrowed, and he shot a look at Link over Zelda’s shoulder. “...No, I don’t believe you did,” he said dryly.

“So the Slate is designed to interface with contemporary Sheikah technology, like the shrines and the sacred towers, and the Divine Beasts in some capacity, right?” Zelda said. When Dragmire nodded she continued, gesturing enthusiastically. “Once a given site is registered with the Slate’s memory, it keeps a record of that site’s location in its memory, and— don’t laugh at me, it’s real— there’s a function available to its registered user that allows them to move through space to any registered site with a ‘travel gate’ recorded in its memory.”

“...That doesn’t seem possible,” Dragmire said.

“It  _ is _ !” Zelda protested. “It’s proven to work— my grandfather made regular use of them while he worked to reclaim the Divine Beasts from Calamity’s influence, we have  _ so _ many records of it— we just….never proved  _ why _ it works. My grandparents couldn’t decipher it, and neither could any of the Sheikah researchers who have experimented with it since.”

“So if it’s so convenient and useful, why don’t the two of you simply use these  _ travel gates _ wherever you need to go?” Dragmire said. “Why take the long roads on horseback when you can travel to  _ any _ gate registered on your Slate?”

“ _ I _ don’t think it’s that convenient,” Link said. “Maybe if you want to go somewhere  _ instantly _ , but I honestly prefer travelling the long way. Gives you more time to adjust.”

“I think it’s because he puked all over his boots the first time he did it,” Zelda said.

Link pouted at her, his cheeks heating. “You  _ said _ you wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“You really aren’t convincing me on this,” Dragmire said wryly. He reached behind Zelda’s back and patted Link gently on the shoulder, his gold eyes soft, and the tips of Link’s ears  _ burned _ .

“It really isn’t  _ that _ bad,” Zelda said, rolling her eyes. “And anyway it’s quick, efficient, and means we won’t have to worry about horses—  _ and _ there are two convenient shrines that should put us right where we need to go, Maka Rah on the shore of Lake Kilsie and Sha Warvo in Dronoc’s Pass. It’s a quick hike from either of them to the potential temple sites.”

They’d passed several levels by that point, and the boardwalk spiral tightened as they got back up into the more residential areas of Rito Village. While the lower levels had been less inhabited, these ones were busy— downy-feathered Rito children darted past on the walkways, or shot past in quick bursts in the air like the cuccos Link’s family kept for eggs. Clusters of older Rito mingled on the walks out to precariously hung wooden buildings, bright plumage and dark in separate groups, or clustered together on the main boardwalks. None of them paid any mind to the three of them in their midst. 

The air was cooler up here, Link noted, and he shot a sideways glance at Dragmire. He’d pulled his cloak a little more tightly about himself, but he didn’t seem to be shivering— and as Link watched, he took another sip from his calabash. The safflina tea must have done its job, then. The thought left a warm glow under his sternum.

Zelda glanced up from the boardwalk at that moment and met his gaze almost incidentally, but her emerald eyes widened, and Link felt the tips of his ears warm. He must have been making  _ some _ sort of face, because those eyes narrowed again. She tilted her head ever so slightly towards Dragmire and arched a brow.

Link’s mouth abruptly felt dry. He lowered his chin a little, just enough to be a nod.

Zelda’s other brow shot up to join the first, and Link immediately redirected his gaze to the boardwalk. She was  _ always _ good at catching him on a crush— every time one of the handsome young knights at the Castle had caught his eye, every secret flirtation with a stablehand or maid, one private dalliance with a young noble lady from Hateno— no matter how well he tried to hide it. Before Farore’s temple it had been a game, really, but this felt...different. His stomach had begun tying itself in knots without his noticing.

He’d have to get her alone later, explain himself. Figure out why  _ this _ one felt like a betrayal.

The boardwalk levelled out and the space opened up, and Zelda bumped into his side to direct him out onto another landing. This one had a white-washed symbol in the center— a crescent moon with a thin spike protruding from the center of the curve, and five irregularly-sized rectangles extending from the outer edges of the crescent’s horns— stylized wings on a fantastical bird-form. Four platforms extended from the landing, one on either side and two off the end that faced the lake, and the well-kept wooden railings were hung with brightly colored ribbons that caught the breeze from the lake. It was blowing in from the north again today, Link noted, and turned his face towards the mountains. Distant storm clouds built up in the highest, most distant peaks—

— And, much closer, two forms winged their way across the lake towards the village.  _ Fast _ forms, at that; within the minute Komali reached the landing and hit the railing, claws first, with a  _ thump _ . Medli landed beside him more gently, then hopped down onto the boardwalk and brushed herself off. She placed weight on her right leg gingerly, Link noted, and he glanced back up at Komali and bit his lip. The owl-faced Rito looked battered, face scratched and bleeding lightly from a score along his side that had torn his clothing.

“Are you two alright?” Dragmire asked.

“Fine,” Komali said tersely. The feathers on his neck lifted, filling out the disc of his face, then flattened again just as abruptly.

“We had a run-in with a pack of lizalfos up on Corvash,” Medli replied. “The  _ bad _ news is, the avalanche seems to have stirred up a whole nest of them— but the  _ good _ news is, I think we’ve found your temple!”

“You did?” Link asked.

“Tell us everything,” Zelda said, reaching out to touch Medli’s shoulder.

“We did a flyover of Sturnida Basin this morning at first light,” Medli said. “The lighting’s best then to try and look for buildings under snow cover, but we couldn’t see anything, so we turned east and headed back towards Corvash— and would you believe it? The avalanche cleared a patch of slope halfway up the mountain, on the southwest face, and there were  _ columns _ and what looked like a  _ door _ under an overhang there. We tried for a closer look, but—”

“That’s when the lizalfos got us,” Komali said. “They’re not common on the southern slopes, but  _ something’s _ got them out of their usual range.” He cocked his head slightly, shooting Link a ruby glare. Link ducked his head slightly to avoid it.

“Things up there are  _ definitely _ getting weird,” Medli said. “Are you three still planning to try for it?”

“Well, I don’t see how we could turn back now,” Zelda said. “If I wasn’t  _ sure _ whether or not the temple was up there I would wait and regroup, but since you’ve found what might be the last piece of evidence we need, we  _ have _ to try for it.”

“I think we should be able to handle a couple lizalfos anyway,” Link said, crossing his arms and shifting his weight.

“Hopefully they’ll have settled down some by the time you get up there,” Medli said. “You  _ should _ be fine as long as they don’t spot you, but—”

Komali hopped down from the railing, leaving gouges from his talons in the wood. “Take the ascent up Rospro Pass and avoid the north face of Corvash. And wait til tomorrow morning to do it, so they’ll piss off somewhere else.”

Then he launched himself skyward in a flurry of feathers, spiralling up around the central pillar and away from them. Medli rolled her eyes, but her expression was gentle.

“Don’t mind him,” she said. “He’s just mad because he feels like he should have spotted them before it became an issue— but he  _ is _ right, you should take a little extra time getting up there so they’ll disperse.”

“We’ll be careful, I promise,” Zelda said. “And thank you—  _ both _ of you— for the help.”

“It’s no trouble, really,” Medli said, and swept out a wing, wrapping it around Zelda’s shoulders. She let go and took a hopping step backwards, spreading both wings and shifting her weight. “Just let us know what you find up there, okay?”

“Of course,” Zelda said.

Medli nodded sharply, then launched herself airborne, kicking the ribbons back into motion as she took to the sky. The sun shone sharply off her white feathers, wings throwing great gusts of wind— and then she was gone, rocketing up and away into the air. Link craned his neck to watch her go, then turned his gaze north again.

Somehow, the clouds hanging over the peaks looked much more threatening than before.

“...Goddesses preserve us,” Dragmire said quietly.

“...Well, at least we know where we’re going now?” Link said, and flashed him an attempt at a hopeful smile. It felt more like a grimace. “And we  _ should _ be able to handle a couple of lizalfos if it comes down to it.”

“Right,” Zelda said. “Remind me to get some of my arrows out of the Slate before we start our ascent— and I’d like to check the general store’s offerings before we head out, I think we’re running low on fire arrows.”

Link nodded. “And I think the Brazen Beak should be open now, so we can get outfitted.”

“Shall we, then?” Dragmire asked, tilting his head. “It’s nearly noon, and if we  _ have _ to make part of the hike today I would rather do it in daylight.”

He extended an arm— and Zelda took it preemptively, her eyes locking with Link’s.

Link let her, turning instead to lead the way back down the walkway.

The Brazen Beak was a level below them, between the levels Link thought would be occupied by Hylian and Gerudo traders in the warmer months and the upper levels that, as far as he could tell, were occupied by Rito year round. It was a bit larger than some of the other buildings on the lower levels, and the view inside was blocked by heavy brown curtains embroidered in white thread, proclaiming the name of the business under the familiar tunic motif of Hyrulean tailors’ shops. The entry curtain was open, tied up off to the side with a heavy, blue-dyed rope. A Rito with feathers of a similar shade occupied the entrance, knitting with surprising speed for someone with wings instead of hands. They looked up at the sound of boots on the boardwalk and set the knitting aside.

“Good morning!” Link said. “Sorry to catch you so early—”

“Oh, you’re fine, we’ve been open for hours,” they replied. “Come on in! You three are here for cold-weather gear, right? Medli dropped by early this morning to say we might have customers.”

“Yes, we are,” Zelda said, releasing Dragmire’s arm to stand next to Link. “We’re planning an ascent up the southern slopes of Mount Hebra, and we need clothing that can be ready today if that’s at all possible.”

The Rito sucked in a breath, and their grey eyes darted from Link to Zelda, and then back up to Dragmire. Beaks weren’t made to grimace, Link thought, but they certainly made an effort.

“We have gear for  _ Hylians _ in a range of sizes,” they said, taking a hopping step back into the shop, and Link ducked in afterwards. “Lots of Hylians come through wanting to take the Hebra ascent, so we  _ should _ have a couple of parkas and trousers available, but...I’m not sure what we can do for a Gerudo on such short notice, especially not one so  _ tall _ …”

“How much of a concern will the cold be?” Dragmire asked. He  _ did _ have to duck under the crossbeam over the entrance, but lingered uncertainly inside the door. “Colder than the Tantari Highlands in the winter?”

“ _ Much _ colder,” the Rito answered. “Even in the summer Hebra stays cold enough to freeze the breath in your lungs, and it’s only  _ just _ snowmelt moon.”

They stepped back behind a shelf, feathers rustling, and Link paused and glanced around the shop. A pair of mannequins stood off to the left side, modelling a pair of snowsuits— one grey-and-cream waxed canvas parka, fastened up the left side of the body, over a pair of heavy tan pants of the same waxed canvas. The second mannequin was dressed identically, but the parka was unfastened, showing off an interior lined in red quilted broadcloth. The rest of the shop was occupied with shelves: rolls and bolts of cloth in neat racks, finished parkas and trousers and boots, a row of mannequin heads in the back modelling a line of hats.

The Rito emerged from behind the shelf, brown feathers ruffled. They carried a bundle of cream fabric under one wing, which they held out to Zelda. 

“This set should fit you— canvas, wool broadcloth, and beeswax from our Hylian trading partners, filled with  _ genuine _ Rito down. This one’s been tested to the point where the breath crystallizes in your nose, and kept the wearer warm.” They turned back to Link, inspecting him with those keen grey eyes. “I’ve got a second set that’ll fit  _ you _ in the back, and  _ you _ —” this directed at Dragmire— “should follow me. We have a  _ couple _ Gerudo parkas in storage, but I’ll need your measurements in case they’ll need alterations to fit.”

They turned around with a little hop and headed for the back of the shop again, and Link hurried after them, trying to keep pace with their shorter, but more energetic stride— and failing, as they ducked behind the shelf at the back of the shop ahead of him. Link paused at the end of it, meeting Dragmire’s gaze, and the Gerudo crossed his arms.

“If they don’t have anything that fits me, I’ve already said you can leave me here,” Dragmire said.

“And we’ve already decided we won’t,” Link replied. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Dragmire opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment the shopkeep popped back out from behind the shelf and thrust a bundle of warm brown canvas at Link.

“Try this set on, and let me know how it fits,” they said. “If the pants are too long, I might have a second pair that will fit you better.” Link took the bundle from them, and they snapped out a length of knotted cord and eyed Dragmire meaningfully. “You, back behind the shelf. I’ll need height, wingspan, the length of your leg, and the size of your waist.”

Dragmire shot Link a hopeless look, but stepped behind the shelf anyway, and the Rito pulled a curtain down between them and the rest of the room.

Link sighed quietly, then made his way back up towards the front, where Zelda had pulled on her parka. Unfolded, it was predominantly cream, with a muted red band of cloth across the right side of the chest, wrapping from the fasteners up to the shoulder. She was still fiddling with the fastenings as Link approached— the inner flap attached with buttons to the inside of the outer one, and the outer flap attached under the left arm with a series of leather thongs. It camouflaged the shape of her body, padding out her silhouette.

“Well?” he asked.

“It’s certainly warm,” Zelda huffed, strapping the last thong into place. “I’m sweating in this and my tunic, and that’s  _ without _ the trousers.”

“How does it fit?” he asked. He dropped his set of trousers on the floor and unfolded the parka first, holding it out at arm’s length for inspection. The flap that closed across the chest was a vibrant green, deepening the brown to the color of tree trunks in a sunlit wood, and the fabric smelled of beeswax and down.

Zelda stretched a moment, raising her arms over her head, then went through the motions— miming lifting a pack, folding her arms, drawing a bowstring— then nodded definitively. “It’s bulky, but it doesn’t get in the way,” she said, sounding pleased. “No more throwing back a cloak for a shot and  _ immediately _ losing all of my heat.”

She began unfastening the leather thongs, and Link shrugged into his parka, holding onto his sleeve so it wouldn’t slide up his arm. The heat enfolded him as he did the same with the other arm, but he ignored it dutifully to begin fastening the buttons. Zelda toed out of her boots to pull on the trousers.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask,” Zelda said, lowering her voice a little and shooting a glance towards the back of the shop. She shimmied her trousers up over her slim hips, and Link averted his eyes from the pale sliver of stomach where her tunic rode up. “You and Dragmire have been getting close, huh?”

“...I can stop if you want me to,” Link said. “I know you were  _ fine _ with it before, but something’s different this time, and...I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s alright,” Zelda said, dropping her tunic back into place. She pulled her braid forward over her shoulder, fidgeting with the end. “You and I both know how my father would feel about... _ us _ , and I can’t chain you to me for the sake of  _ my _ satisfaction.”

Link bit his lip, to restrain the  _ I’m willing to wait for you _ on the tip of his tongue, and fiddled with the last button a moment before sliding it through the eyelet.

Instead, he said, “I know you won’t. I just want to be sure  _ you’re _ okay with whatever might come of it, before I make a move.”

“I am,” Zelda replied. She folded the end of the trouser leg against itself, trying to tuck it into her boot, then sighed and let it fall over the top instead. “If you want to chase him, you have whatever permission you need.”

“You won’t be jealous?” Link asked, arching a brow and trying for levity.

Zelda snorted. “Oh,  _ terribly _ . You get to run around kissing whoever you please, of  _ course _ I’m jealous.”

Link snorted and flashed her a crooked grin, which she returned.

The parka, at least, fit nicely. It was broad enough in the chest without being too wide in the shoulders, and while Zelda was right— it  _ was _ bulky— it didn’t hamper him as he tested a few sword-forms. The trousers, when he tried them on, fit too— not too tight through the hips, enough flexibility there and at the knees, long enough to fall past the ankles of his boots when he rolled them down, which was always nice for keeping deep snow from falling in the tops.

He’d just finished stripping out of the gear when the curtain hooks rattled on the rod, drawing his attention to the back of the shop. The Rito had emerged in a flurry of ruffled feathers, hopping lightly from foot to foot.

And then Dragmire emerged, and Link felt as if the world around him had frozen.

The Rito had located for him a parka in deep, rich blue-black, in a shade that made his warm brown skin seem to glow in contrast, trimmed in ruddy crimson and deep violet. Unlike the parkas Link and Zelda had tried, this one fell to the middle of Dragmire’s thighs, clinched in just enough at his waist to emphasize the breadth of his shoulders. The accompanying black trousers seemed a little short, falling a few inches above the ankles of his boots, but otherwise they seemed to fit well. Link found his eyes drawn back up, up the sweeping curves of the coat to Dragmire’s shoulders, his neck, to the fiery wisps of hair escaping his bun to curl against the collar.

The waxed canvas of the parka in his hands creaked a complaint as his grip tightened.

Behind him, Zelda hummed her approval. “I guess there was something back there that fit after all,” she said.

“Just barely,” Dragmire said, his cheeks reddening.

“The trousers  _ should _ be a little longer, but if that’s not a dealbreaker I can discount them,” the shopkeep said. They wove back through the room and over to the counter, flipping open another ledger. “Did your parkas and trousers fit, or do you need another set?”

“They’re fine, thank you,” Zelda said. “So, what do we owe?”

“Are you renting or purchasing?” the Rito asked, flipping over another page. “Hylian-sized gear, untailored, runs 500 rupees for each parka and 460 per pair of trousers, for purchase, and 250 and 230 respectively for a rental.”

Zelda hummed thoughtfully. “I think I would prefer to purchase my parka and rent the trousers. Link?”

“Just a rental for me, I think,” he said. “The parka’s  _ nice _ , but I don’t know how much I’ll need it after this trip.

“I’ll make my purchase separately, but I would also prefer to buy the parka and rent the trousers,” Dragmire said.

He and Zelda made their way to the counter, and Link heard the jingling of rupees exchanged. He headed for the door, drumming his fingers on the wooden frame and watching the boardwalks instead, his eyes drawn inexorably northward, to the line of mountains and the dark storm clouds pressing against the blue sky above them. There was a weight to the air, a feeling of expectancy he hadn’t noticed before the other two temples.

The floorboards behind him creaked, and Zelda and Dragmire emerged, both carrying their purchases under an arm. Zelda brushed up against Link’s side and paused beside him, turning her gaze north as well before glancing at him and Dragmire.

“Well?” she said. “Let’s get our packs and go. The day isn’t going to get any longer, and I’d like to make the trailhead lodge before sundown.”

That was all the prompting it took. The three of them turned, almost as one, and headed back down the steps to the inn, ducking back into the eastern wing, and Dragmire threw open the curtains around their beds to let the others pass. Link pulled on the parka again, and slung his cloak over his shoulders, but packed the trousers away into his pack and hiked it up onto his back. He could see the others doing the same out of the corner of his eye— Zelda packing away her books, Dragmire pinning his cloak in place with his ruby brooch. Zelda slung her pack up over her shoulders, adjusting the straps again for good measure. Dragmire followed suit.

They emerged into the open air again, and Link led them up around the central pillar, higher and higher to the place the shrine was marked on his map, on the stone outcropping about halfway up, at the point where the commercial lower town began to transition to the more residential areas of Rito Village.

The outcropping was deserted when they reached it, and Link paused on the landing, taking in the view. Lake Totori sprawled in the background, blue water shining against the dark, metallic stone of the face of the shrine. The travel gate on the platform outside of it pulsed with lights, seeming almost expectant.

“Alright, so how exactly does this  _ work _ ?” Dragmire asked.

“This is where the travel gates get complicated,” Zelda said. “A single user, coded to use of the Slate— in this case, that would be Link— can use the travel gates to move from  _ any _ point in Hyrule to a travel gate.  _ Two _ users, on the other hand, can only travel from one registered gate to another— we’re not sure why, my grandmother theorized it had  _ something _ to do with the increased amount of energy required to move two people.”

“And what about  _ three _ ?” Dragmire asked. He stepped down off the wooden landing and into the grass around the shrine, pacing up to circle the platform without stepping onto it. Link followed him, but stepped up to stand on it instead, planting his boots over the glowing lines of the travel gate.

Zelda hopped up to join him a moment later. “It  _ can’t _ be used to move three people at once,” she said. “My grandparents and other researchers tested it repeatedly, with different combinations of participants, but only two people can travel at once.”

“So how are we going to work this?” Dragmire asked, pausing in his pacing to look up at them. His golden eyes were hawk-bright.

“I’ll take Zelda first and drop her off at Dronoc’s Pass, and then come back for you,” Link said. “Is that alright?”

“I have no complaints,” Dragmire said. He paused, then arched a brow and put a hand on his hip. “Just don’t puke on  _ my _ boots when you take me.”

“ _ Hey _ ,” Link huffed, shooting him a dirty look.

Zelda hooked an arm through Link’s before he could say anything else, and he sighed and pulled the Slate out, navigating through to the map screen. It loaded immediately to their area, a golden arrow pointing in the direction the Slate faced, and Link expanded the map view and maneuvered it further north, until Dronoc’s Pass came into view, and the glowing diamond of an active shrine gate with it. He tapped on it with a finger, then clicked through the following screens, ignoring the illegible Ancient Sheikah script and following the instructions Zelda had given him when he’d first been handed the Slate, three years before.

The world around him dissolved in a burst of cool air and blue light.

When the brilliance faded, Link squinted against the bright white light of sun on snow instead. He shaded his eyes with a hand, peering around him— snow-covered ground, craggy grey rock, pine trees sagging under the weight of the snow still lingering on their branches. Zelda released his arm and hopped off the platform onto the stone trail, glancing north towards where the map said the Flight Range lay, then south towards the walking path, to where it turned to the northeast and began the ascent towards the southern slopes of Mount Hebra.

“I’ll scout ahead a little bit, and be ready when you come back,” Zelda said. “My grandfather’s field notes mentioned that in his day a troop of bokoblins set up a raiding party that controlled this crossroad, and I’d rather we  _ didn’t _ have to deal with them.”

“Sounds good,” Link said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

He activated the Slate again, closing his eyes to feel his boots lift from the platform, and touched down again a moment later on the one in Rito Village, the warmer air stinging his face after the chill.

Dragmire was waiting for him, still standing in the grass. “...Well?” he asked, tilting his head.

“Well?” Link asked back, and offered his hand. “Come on.”

Dragmire reached out immediately and took Link’s hand, then stepped up onto the platform. He was warm even through his thick leather gloves. Link’s heart stuttered. He bit his lip gently and pulled Dragmire closer, pressing himself against the larger man’s side, then maneuvered through the map screen again. He could feel Dragmire’s eyes on him, on the Slate.

His fingers found the shrine again and pressed, and the world dissolved again for a single blessed moment before they landed on the gate. The chill wind off Mount Hebra bit at the side of Link’s face, and he felt Dragmire shiver against him, releasing his hand to pull the hood of his cloak up over his head. Link glanced up at him, then higher, to the dim clouds beginning to sweep in from the north.

Boots crunched on frozen ground, and a moment later Zelda surmounted the rise, pulling her own hood back from her face.

“The crossroads are clear,” she said. “No sign of any foot passage, human or otherwise, since the last snowfall. If we go now we should make good time to the lodge— it’s supposedly only an hour’s hike to the northeast— and then we’ll have the rest of the evening to plan our ascent.”

Zelda’s estimate was right, of course. The lodge was just over an hour up the trail, but they ate up the miles with a good, steady pace. The air was crisper than down at the village, cleaner, and Link marvelled at the way the sun shone refracted through the ice on the trees and glistened blue in the frosty grass and shadows on snowbanks. No birds called, and the air was hushed, broken only by the sound of their footsteps on the path and their breathing, which hung in the still air in plumes of vapor. None of them dared speak until at last they rounded the bend and the cabin came into view, a little low-slung wooden building tucked up against the base of a cliff. The snowbanks around it were lower, though, and the space around the front door— and a trail around to the side of the cabin, where Link presumed the woodpile would be— had been cleared.

Zelda tromped up to the door and rapped sharply on it with her knuckles. Then, when no response came, she shoved it open, ignoring the way the hinges squealed in protest, and stuck her head inside.

“It’s empty,” she said, poking her head back out.

Then she slipped inside, and Link hurried to follow her.

The inside of the cabin was dark— dark wood, windows blocked by curtains to keep out the cold, until Dragmire shoved one open and let a bolt of sunlight in to lance the gloom. It was exactly as small as it had appeared from the outside, too: a couple of beds tucked in one corner, a table and stools on the other side of the room, a fireplace on the back wall with a smoke-blackened cookpot and a pile of kindling stacked beside it. The flames in the hearth had been banked to embers, but Dragmire padded over to it and knelt, stacking some of the kindling over the coals. His shoulders rose, and Link heard him inhale deeply.

When he exhaled, the flames leapt up in response.

“That was banked early this morning, I think,” Dragmire said. “Either someone anticipated a group like ours following them, or they intended to come back.”

“Well then, they’ll have to share,” Zelda said with a huff, and dropped her pack down on one of the beds.

Link shrugged and made his way over, setting his pack down at the foot of the bed Zelda had dropped hers on, then looked it and the rest of the furniture over. Dark wood, the same as the cabin itself, carved roughly but serviceably. The mattress, from the sound it had made when Zelda dropped her pack, was straw-filled, but the blankets looked like good wool, and all three beds had quilts.

Someone had loved the idea of this place a good deal.

Dragmire dropped his own pack by the table, then shook out his cloak to straighten it. “I’ll go and get some more wood for the fire, warm this place up a little,” he said, then slipped back outside, closing the door behind him.

“Well?” Zelda said in Link’s ear. “What are you waiting for, an invitation?”

The cold air was a shock, again, even after the mild chill of the cabin. Link shook himself and followed Dragmire’s boot prints in the snow around to the side with the woodpile. He paused as he rounded the corner, taking it all in— the cool blue air, the grey cliff and white snow, Dragmire against it like a splash of flame and cinders in his dark cloak. He glanced up at the sound of Link’s footsteps, and his golden eyes softened.

“Come to help me?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Link said, and made his way over to the woodpile as well. He gathered up a few decent-sized logs, watching Dragmire out of the corner of his eye. “...And to check in on you, that’s all.”

“I’m alright,” Dragmire replied, shrugging his shoulders. “A bit chilly, but that’s to be expected. You?”

“Just fine,” Link said. He hesitated, took a deep breath. “...Look, you’ve been talking a lot about Zelda and I leaving you behind, and I’m worried.”

Dragmire heaved a sigh and set down the wood he’d picked up, turning to face Link directly. “To be frank with you, I’m worried I won’t be of much use,” he said. “Most mages are more skilled in some areas than others, and ice magics are my  _ weak _ point— and this place is  _ all _ ice. I don’t want to slow you two down.”

“You  _ won’t _ ,” Link said, setting his wood down as well. “If we didn’t want you to come we’d have left you behind in the desert.”

“You invited me along because of fate,” Dragmire said dryly.

“Yeah, at first,” Link said. “But, look. We  _ want _ you here now, for  _ you _ —  _ I _ want you here—”

“ _ You _ ?” Dragmire asked. His eyes had gone wide.

“...Yeah,” Link said. His pulse roared in his ears. “Me. I, um. I like you. A lot.” He bit his lip—  _ goddess _ , did he  _ always _ sound so stupid when he confessed?

“...And here Nabooru called  _ me _ a besotted idiot,” Dragmire said. He reached out and cupped Link’s cheek in one massive hand, pulling him gently closer. “I was just under the impression that  _ Zelda _ was your partner.”

“It’s...a bit complicated,” Link said. “But she’s never stopped me from kissing a pretty boy before.”

“...Would you like to?” Dragmire asked. His cheeks had reddened, and he glanced away a moment before meeting Link’s eyes again, worrying his lower lip between his teeth.

_ Goddess _ .

“Yes,” Link said, and leaned up to cross the gap between them.

Dragmire’s lips were warm under his own, and slightly chapped, and when he opened his mouth into the kiss he tasted like ozone on Link’s tongue. Link fisted his free hand in Dragmire’s cloak, felt his arms encircle his back in turn to pull him closer.

They broke the kiss, and Dragmire pressed his forehead firmly against Link’s.

“Was that what you wanted?” he whispered.

“...Maybe one more,” Link said, and pulled him in again.

He surged up again, releasing Dragmire’s hand to cup his nape and kiss him more deeply. Dragmire made a low, pleased noise in the back of his throat, and a hand dropped to the small of Link’s back to hold him close. More ozone. A tingle of electricity danced across Link’s lower lip, and he nipped at Dragmire’s in return, threading his fingers through his hair. They fell apart again, clashed back together, and Link tugged Dragmire’s hair free of its bun, clutching fistfuls of flame in his hands. Dragmire reeled back—

—And lost his balance, and the next thing Link knew they were in the snow.

Dragmire burst out laughing. Link couldn’t help but join him, settling against his broad chest and shaking until the laughter subsided. The warmth of his cloak from the ruby brooch was incredible, and part of Link wanted to curl into him and never emerge.

“...Ah, I suppose we should  _ actually _ get that wood,” Dragmire gasped, and released Link to wipe away tears of laughter.

“Yeah, we’ll need it,” Link said ruefully, and stood, helping Dragmire to his feet. They were both damp, he noted with distaste, and he shook the clinging snow from his cloak.

Dragmire pulled him in for another kiss, this one much more chaste. “We will,” he said quietly, but he didn’t turn or pull away, his breath and Link’s mingling in the frigid air.


	10. Chapter 9: A Crown of Flame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm posting a bit early— shit is currently hitting the fan at work and this weekend is supposed to be super busy, so I'm dropping this chapter now so I don't forget. I'm hoping to resume my usual schedule next time I post (10/24/20), but...I can't make any guarantees.
> 
> And I won't apologize for what happens in this chapter, either.

_ On high peaks where the great winds break, _ _   
_ _ The Wise their thirst for vision slake _ _   
_ _ In lost halls where the Blue Flame wakes. _

* * *

The storm clouds hung, dour and grey, like sentinels over the distant peaks. Zelda kept half an eye on them as they hiked further up Rospro Pass, watching them build and blacken with each step up the ascent. 

They’d been pale grey shadows two hours earlier, when Link had urged them all out of bed just after dawn— which Zelda had nearly resented, given the biting cold awaiting them outside the lodge’s huddled warmth— and they’d begun the ascent. Ragged banners in red-and-blue canvas had marked the path up the ascent, like tattered sentinels standing guard against the wind and leading them ever higher, until they’d turned off the path to navigate Mount Corvash directly and stumbled directly into the avalanche zone. It was exactly as Medli had said— a tumbled waste of snow and ice, and, distantly, an outcropping of rock with a shadow beneath it that  _ might _ have been an overhang.

They made it halfway up the slope when the snow and ice Link had been standing on gave out beneath him and sent him sliding back down the slope, until he slammed into something with a yelp. Zelda hurried up towards him, mindful of the way the ice underfoot shifted with every step. She caught hold of his arm and hauled him up out of the snowbank, steadying him against her.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“Fine,” Link said, shaking himself. Snow fell from his hair, still glittering golden in the weak morning light. “I just hit something on the way down. Felt like a  _ rock _ .”

The snow crunched under Dragmire’s feet as he picked his way up the slope towards them, more careful of his footing than Zelda had been. He paused just  _ below _ the drift Link had crashed into, studying it intently.

“...I think that’s a  _ column _ ,” he said, and paced a few steps further up, crouching carefully beside it. “Zelda, come take a look— does this look Hyllic to you?”

Zelda let go of Link reluctantly and picked her way down the slope a little to kneel in the snow beside the low outcropping, ignoring the way the cold pressed at her through her pants. The column was native Hebraic blueschist, worn from the wind and crumbled in places where the shifting snows had torn at it, obscuring and distorting the carvings. She dug another inch at the base, which provided no further answers.

“I can’t tell— it’s way too damaged for me to make out any identifying stylistic traits,” she said at last, standing and brushing the snow from her knees.

“There’s another one up here,” Link said. When Zelda looked up he’d moved a bit further up the slope, standing beside a  _ second _ column. This one thrust up a little further, reaching futilely skyward with a broken upper edge.

Past him, higher up the slope, she could see more tops of columns poking out of the tumbled snow. She began picking her way up towards them, pausing at every shift of the unstable snow under her boots— if she slipped, or if the snow down the slope gave way again, she could be carried away to her death. The snow behind her crunched as the other two followed, trailing after her— or in Link’s case, darting on ahead— as she made her way higher. She lifted her eyes from the snow to gaze further up the slope—

To the overhang a little further up, clearly recently exposed, with broken columns extending out in straight lines on either side of it. She picked up her pace, darting over the tumbled snow until she reached the left-hand column three out from the overhang. The right-hand column had snapped halfway up when the avalanche had occurred, the upper edge still ragged and glittering in the pale morning light. This close she could see into the overhang, where it extended back a few paces into the stone of the mountain. It was, clearly,  _ not _ a natural cave— the sides of it were far too regular, and at the back, something orange glowed dully. Something which, when she approached, proved to be a glowing Sheikah eye set into the face of a door.

A door that was sealed behind a layer of ice as thick as her hand.

“ _ Well _ ,” she said, and reached out to rap on the ice with her knuckles. It chilled her hand even through her gloves. “It’s a shame the avalanche didn’t take  _ this _ with it.”

She stepped back as Link entered the space beneath the overhang, Sheikah Slate already in hand. He tapped at something on the screen— one of the runes, if she had to guess— and held up the Slate to face the door. The eye on the back opened, washing the space in pale blue light.

“What are you doing?” Dragmire asked, still lingering outside the overhang.

“Cryonis,” Link said. He tapped at the screen again, then frowned. “It’s one of the Slate runes— it  _ usually _ lets me manipulate ice in my surroundings, breaking or freezing it, but this stuff….isn’t responding to it.”

“Weird,” Zelda said, and peeked over his shoulder at the Slate. The screen showed their surroundings cast in bluish, and while ice that could be broken with the rune usually shone red, the layer over the door was as blue as the wall beside it. “So what do we do, then? We’re  _ not _ going to turn around here.”

Link tapped at the Slate, flipping through a few more screens, then frowned. “And we don’t have any flameblade gear in the Slate to melt it. Maybe we could light a torch or something…”

“Melt it?” Dragmire asked. The snow underfoot crunched as he ducked under the overhang, making his way up to join them. “In  _ that _ case, maybe I could handle it.”

Zelda scowled at him, clenching her fists in her cloak. “The  _ last _ time we let you get us into a temple, you were  _ completely _ out of magic by the time we were done,” she said.

Dragmire had the audacity to wink at her. “The last time I got us into a temple, I raised an entire edifice from the sands.  _ This _ time, I only need to melt a layer of ice.” He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms forward, the waxed canvas of his coat creaking, then added, “You two may want to step back. It’s about to get  _ very _ hot in here.”

“Hot, you say?” Link said playfully.

Zelda grabbed him by the back of his coat and towed him backwards, rolling her eyes. The two of them had been nearly inseparable— and nearly  _ insufferable _ — since they’d come back in from getting wood at the cabin the evening before. She’d almost forgotten what it was like to watch Link flirt openly, and now it was on full display: every stupid joke, every bad pun, the way his hands seemed drawn like magnets to the object of his attentions. And  _ goddess _ , she’d said she wouldn’t be jealous. That she didn’t need to compete for Link’s affection. But it certainly stung watching the gentleness in Dragmire’s hands when he’d reached for Link, the easy way Link reached back.

They breached the overhang, emerging back into the chill outside, and Zelda let go of Link’s coat and turned back to watch Dragmire. He pulled the hood of his cloak down, letting his braid swing out like a pendulum— and then keep swinging. A shimmer of heat rose around him, and she could  _ smell _ it, hot and dry through the sharpness of the chill in the air around them.

And then, all at once, he burst into flames.

Link yelped and surged forward. Zelda grabbed him by the back of his coat again, ignoring his protests as a corona of fire licked up around Dragmire’s body. Blue flames clung to him, dancing across his shoulders and limning his cloak, bleeding out in red and gold bursts at the edges. He glanced over his shoulder at them and flashed a smile, eyes glowing through the flames, then turned back towards the door. A wet sizzle struck her ears, and a wave of heat rolled out from beneath the overhang. The snow around her boots was beginning to melt.

Dragmire laughed, and the flames around him began to curl and shrink, fading away into the barest shimmer of air and letting the cold surge back in, and he turned back towards them with a wild grin on his face.

“Come on,” he said. “The temple’s waiting.”

Zelda ducked back under the overhang, reaching up to unfasten her coat as she did— the space underneath was still swelteringly hot, despite the chill beginning to roll in from outside— and paused, inspecting the door. Without the wall of ice in the way she could see it clearly, a flat disc of deep brown, metallic stone with a glowing Sheikah eye embossed in the center. The outer edge of it was almost cream-colored, every inch of it engraved with Sheikah writing in a script she didn’t recognise, and she squinted at it curiously. It was almost too small to read, but the characters were familiar…

“I think this is a travel gate,” Zelda said, and rapped on the door with her knuckles. “I would need to check my notes, but this  _ looks _ like a similar inscription to the ones on the Divine Beasts— but I’ve never seen one oriented  _ vertically _ before. Link, will you—”

He passed her the Slate before she could finish talking, and Zelda snapped a couple pictures of the door and the inscription on the edge. She’d have to transfer it into her field journal when they descended the mountain again— at this height and this chill, the ink would freeze on her nib before she could copy it down.

Then she handed the Slate back to him and stepped aside, gesturing towards the door. “Care to do the honors, Link?”

Link flushed, his fair cheeks and the tips of his ears reddening, but he stepped forward anyway, raising the Slate so the eye on the back pressed against the eye on the door. The orange light shimmered, then brightened to blue, and Zelda felt the spill of energy against her skin. Felt something shift, far beneath their feet. Link pulled the Slate back, dropping it back into its case at his hip.

The door rumbled softly, accompanied by a hiss and sigh of ancient machinery somewhere behind the rock wall. It rocked slightly in place, then rolled off to the left on a hidden track, and bluish light spilled through the new opening onto the snow around them. The space on the other side was wide open— a hallway, leading into the side of the mountain. The walls were sleek, dark stone, the floor cream-colored and covered in swirling patterns— and polished to a high gloss, reflecting the spectral blue sconces on the walls without so much as a mote of dust to mar it.

“...Something about that doesn’t look right,” Dragmire said softly.

“It looks like the one in Faron,” Link said, and stepped over the threshold.

Zelda followed him without hesitation, tilting her head back to gaze around the entryway, to take it all in. The place sported the classic Sheikah shrine vaulted ceilings, high and emitting their own pale blue light, like the moon through a pane of ice. The dark walls were patterned over in places, abstractions curling over them in brown and gold swirls, all interspersed with the spectral blue torches, like in the Chambers of the Flames, broken only by the gap of a shimmering blue door in the opposite wall from the entryway. A Guidance Stone sat in the corner nearest the door, the great black hulk of it suspended from the ceiling, and Link made a beeline for it.

“What’s  _ that _ ?” Dragmire asked from behind her.

“They’re called Guidance Stones,” Zelda said. “According to my grandmother’s research, they’re repositories of data, which can be transmitted to an appropriate piece of technology to be accessed— such as the Slate. She did most of her research on the Sacred Towers’ Stones, which according to her notes served to process data on the surrounding territory and transmit it to the Slate as a map of the region, though the researchers at the Hateno laboratory have access to one with information on a compendium of native Hyrulean wildlife, and my  _ grandfather _ is quoted as having used a few Stones that gave additional functionality to the Slate, such as the Cryonis rune Link attempted to use— there are a couple  _ others _ on the Slate, we’ll  _ have _ to show you sometime—”

Over at the Guidance Stone, Link placed the Slate into the spot on the pedestal beneath it, and Zelda broke off, darting over to watch. The face of the pedestal lit orange around the Slate, which rotated in place, and a moment later lines of blue text began to scroll across the face of the Stone above. They moved too quickly for Zelda to decipher, as always, but she watched eagerly as they coalesced into a brilliant blue droplet at the tip of the Stone. That droplet swelled, quivering at the tip and fattening as more and more text scrolled down towards it, then broke at once from the Stone and splashed down onto—  _ into _ — the Slate. The face of the pedestal lit up blue, then lifted, releasing the Slate into Link’s hands.

“So what did we get?” Zelda asked eagerly, peering over Link’s shoulder as he flipped through the screens.

“Map of the temple,” Link said. “Let’s see...four floors descending from our current position, each one smaller than the one above it. This first floor is about square, the one below it is a rectangle, the third one is...looks like one room with a hallway in a ring around the outside, and then the very bottom floor is a single chamber, I think.”

“Which means that bottom floor is probably where the Flame is,” Dragmire said, peering over Link’s other shoulder. “I could feel it down there when I melted the ice.”

Zelda shot him a sidelong glance, a question burning on the tip of her tongue. She’d  _ thought _ he’d seemed unusually sensitive and alert in the last temple— if he was able to sense the location of the Flames after all, could he sense the Malice as well? What did the realm of spirits look like through the eyes of a Gerudo mage, and how different was it from her own goddess’s eyes? 

She bit the query back instead, looking up from the map towards the door on the opposite wall, which shimmered invitingly. It was translucent, and showed a cloudy blue glimpse of the space on the other side, though she could make out no details, only dim shapes in the blue.

“Well, we aren’t getting to it any more quickly, standing around here,” she said, and slipped past Link, striding across the room to the door.

The space on the other side wasn’t any clearer up close, no matter how Zelda peered at it. She raised her fist and held it cautiously in front of the shimmering surface, watching as it rippled where her knuckles nearly touched it, sending little shivers across the entire face of the door, and felt the barest hint of energy reach out to brush over her skin.

A warm weight materialized over her shoulder, and then Link bumped up against her hip as he inspected the door himself, blue eyes curious.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Some kind of ward,” Zelda said.

Then she reached out and knocked.

The door made a hollow sound under her knuckles, like she’d rapped on glass, and shattered into light and vanished. The space behind it stood empty now, like there hadn’t been anything to block the opening in the wall in the first place, and Zelda peeked her head through curiously.

The next room looked much the same as the one they stood in— dark walls patterned over in pale gold, glossy, cream-colored floor. The wall across from the entrance turned a corner, hiding part of the room from view, so Zelda stepped through, scanning the space for threats. And there she froze, staring at the rows and rows of torches that filled the space.

“What the…?” Link asked, ducking in after her.

“...Looks like torches,” Dragmire said.

Zelda looked them over, studying the layout. Three rows of five torches each, all unlit save the centermost of the row furthest from the door they’d entered by, which cradled a blue, smokeless flame in its head. There was a door on the opposite side of the space, directly across from the lit torch, and she made her way across to inspect it. It didn’t respond when she pushed on it, and unlike the temple entrance, there was no Sheikah eye on its face, nowhere for the Slate to register. She turned back to the torches.

“I  _ think _ there’s something we’re supposed to do with these that’ll open the door,” she said, and made her way back to the lit torch, inspecting it curiously. There was no  _ fuel _ in the head, she noticed, but the flame burned anyway, light without smoke or heat. “We have to...light them in a specific order or pattern, or something.”

“Or just certain ones,” Dragmire said thoughtfully. “Any clues?”

“I didn’t see an inscription on the door, but I can check again,” Zelda said, biting her lower lip.

“I don’t think we need to,” Link said, and strode to the torch nearest the door they’d entered by, tapping his foot on the floor. “Look down. The  _ rest _ of the floor is polished, but there’s an  _ unpolished _ strip running from this torch up to the lit one.”

Zelda dropped her gaze, tilting her head until the light shifted— and there, a stripe of tile that didn’t reflect the light, which passed from Link’s torch to hers, crossing the second torch from the left on the second row. A quick glance showed a second line of unpolished tile extending down to the right, to the furthest torch on the last row, and—

“Dragmire, will you see if—” she started.

“Already on it,” he said, darting across to the furthest torch. He paused there, head cocked, then paced across the row towards Link. “There’s a non-reflecting path that leads to yours, but not one that leads to Link... _ ah _ , here,” he said, and stopped at the center torch on that row. “The tile this one’s set on doesn’t reflect, so this must be the one we light.”

“Alright,” Zelda said, and slung her bow down from her back. 

She took a moment to string it— the change in altitude would have snapped it if she’d left it strung on the hike up— and tested the tension, then pulled one of her arrows from her quiver. Like most Hylian archers, she color-coded her fletchings— ordinary white for broadheads, brown-barred for bomb arrows, feathers dyed red, blue, and green for fire, ice, and lightning respectively. She’d feathered her amber arrows with yellow, of course, and those lingered down at the bottom of her quiver.

The arrow she drew now, though, was fletched with grey, and she took a moment to inspect the heavy coating of pitch on the stone arrowhead. It was intact, she noted with satisfaction, and she nocked it and drew, aiming through the blue flame and through the heads of the torches along the unpolished line. Her grandfather hadn’t  _ invented _ flammable arrows, not by a long shot, but he had pioneered their resurgence in Hylian archery; they were far less expensive, and more easily made, than the ruby-headed fire arrows.

She took a deep, slow breath, her thumb brushing the anchor-point at the corner of her jaw.

Then she loosed the arrow.

The blue flame leapt in the torch, springing up in the second, and then her arrow slammed home in the head of the third, bringing the fire with it. Link whooped excitedly.

She drew again, aiming down the second line of unpolished tile, and loosed again, lighting the other two. Then she turned for the final torch— and paused. Another torch stood between her and the third they needed to light, and if she shot a flammable arrow at it, it would ignite a torch that  _ wasn’t _ marked to light, and Hylia knew what would happen if she did.

“Hang on a second, let me—” Dragmire started. He darted over to one of the lit torches, and thrust his hands into the flames before she could ask what he meant.

When he withdrew them, blue fire danced in his cupped palms and in his eyes, and she felt his gaze like a bolt through her stomach when those eyes met hers. He turned and made his way back to the middle torch on the far row and stood, facing her, and met her eyes again as he settled the flames into the head of the torch. The fire in his eyes faded.

The feeling in her stomach didn’t.

There was a soft hum from behind her, and when Zelda turned around, Nayru’s crest had lit up in the center of the formerly featureless door. She slung her bow back into place across her back and made her way over to it, pausing with her fingers mere inches over the glowing stone as Link and Ganondorf joined her. The glow brightened when Link reached her side— responding to the Slate, she guessed— and she reached out and placed her hand flat against it.

The door rumbled softly and rolled aside.

The room on the other side was  _ filled _ with water, save a curved, grated platform near the door. It didn’t appear deep, certainly no deeper than she could dive, but the surface of the water was covered in a thin, crackling skin of ice. Link and Dragmire stepped out onto the platform without hesitation, and Zelda followed, peering around further. The room was loosely rectangular, as far as she could tell, and stretched off to their right, where the far end of it wrapped around a corner and disappeared from view.

“Let me guess,” she said. “The door is on the other end of the room.”

“Unfortunately,” Link said. He made his way out to the edge of the platform, peering down into the water, then around the corner. Then he lifted the Slate again and flipped open the map. “...This says there’s supposed to be another couple platforms in here— three of them, shaped like Nayru’s crest— that’ll give us access to the door, but...it looks like they’re underwater right now.”

“What about cryonis?” Zelda asked. “Can we get to the door without figuring out how to raise them?”

“Map says it’s locked,” Link replied, shaking his head.

“What about the targets on the walls?” Dragmire asked.

“The...targets?” Zelda asked.

“Well, I assume the orange discs on the wall are targets,” Dragmire said, and pointed.

On the center of the left-hand wall, most of the way up towards the ceiling, was a luminous orange circle. Zelda turned and scanned the room, spotting a second at the center of the facing wall— and the right wall, too, just visible past the corner.

“Sure looks like it,” Link said.

Zelda pulled an arrow from her quiver, nocked, and raised her bow, sighting for the target. She loosed almost immediately— it was close, not quite point-blank range but near enough that she wasn’t worried. The arrow struck home, dead center on the target, which flashed blue momentarily.

Then it faded back to orange. Nothing in the room moved, not even the faintest whisper of machinery.

“That’s…..odd,” she said. She nocked and drew again, this time to a full draw to put more power behind it, then loosed.

Again, the target flashed blue, then faded back to orange.

“...Maybe we could try a different sort of arrow?” Link said.

Zelda paused, inspecting her quiver. “Only if you have spares in the Slate. I’ve only got five each of the spellstone arrows, and I  _ don’t _ think it would be a good idea to use a bomb arrow at close range like this.”

“Try ice first,” Dragmire said. “The last room was fire, so this one  _ must _ be ice.”

“How do  _ you _ know?” she retorted.

Dragmire rolled his eyes. “Call it an educated guess, Princess,” he said.

Zelda rolled her eyes in return, but she drew one of the sapphire-tipped ice arrows anyway, running her fingers gently over the blue fletchings. She nocked and drew, lining up for the shot, then loosed again.

The arrow struck home in a brilliant burst of sapphire light, and the target turned blue and  _ stayed _ . There was a great rumbling from somewhere below. The surface of the water shivered, breaking the thin skin of ice, and another platform rose before them, sluicing freezing water through the grate. No, not one platform— two, a curved one like a crescent moon, and a half-circle abutting the wall.

“Oh, that’s  _ clever _ ,” Dragmire said. He didn’t even wait for the platforms to stabilize before he moved, leaping over to the second crescent and setting it swaying with his weight.

“Which target next?” Zelda asked. She stepped over the gap between the first platform and the second crescent one, mindful of the way the damp grate stuck to her boots like it wanted to freeze her in place.

“If I had to guess, the one on the right wall should bring up the third platform, and maybe unlock the door,” Link said.

"Then what does the other one do?" Dragmire asked. "There's only three platforms, and we have two of them raised already."

Zelda checked her quiver, running her fingers over the fletching of her arrows. "We have to decide if it's worth finding out, I only have four ice arrows left and we might need them later on. Link, are there any more in the—"

"No, not in the Slate," Link said. He opened it up again, turning it so she could see the storage screens. The slot for ice arrows was empty, and their fire and electric arrows were low as well— one of the former, eight of the latter.

"We're stocked up on bomb arrows though, I see," she said wryly, as she tapped the screen to retrieve them.

Dragmire snorted, and Link shot him a melodramatically wounded look, one Zelda couldn't help laughing at herself. Link pouted at her in turn.

"They're useful, okay," he muttered.

"That's not the point," Zelda replied. "Do we use one of my ice arrows on a target whose functions we don't understand, or do we save it and potentially miss something important?"

"......Or...I could try something," Dragmire said.

"What?" Link asked.

Dragmire sighed. “I’m not especially  _ good _ at manipulating ice, but if Zelda wants to preserve her arrows, I can certainly give it a shot.”

"And if you burn yourself out doing it?" Zelda asked. Her stomach had tightened again— something deep in her gut told her they would be in trouble if Dragmire exhausted his magical strength, and she didn't want to chance it.

"I'll stop if the strain is too much, I promise," Dragmire said. "I know my strength, I won't overtax myself for this."

Zelda nodded and stepped back again, pulling Link with her. Dragmire strode forward, to the edge of the crescent, and held his hand out over the frigid water. His brilliant eyes fell closed, and a moment later his braid began to sway.

The air temperature dropped, from merely chilly to biting, and Zelda gasped in shock. Link's grip tightened on her arm. The air around Dragmire shimmered— filled with small particles of ice swirling around his body. He turned his extended hand over, palm facing up, and the water beneath him shivered. The ice at the surface stirred, lifting jagged edges and moving slowly together.

He raised his hand slowly, until it was level with his face. The ice juddered and rippled, and slowly, slowly, a ball of jagged-edged ice rose, dripping, from the water, until it came level with his hand. Dragmire's eyes opened, and Zelda grabbed at Link's arm— they'd gone flat and silvery, reflective. He raised his hand further, turning his palm outward— and thrust.

The ball of ice shot forward, shattering against the target, which glowed brilliantly blue.

Something rumbled— above them— and Zelda looked up as a panel in the ceiling over the half-circle rolled back, dropping something through it. Another chest crashed down onto the grate, rolling clangorously until it came to a rest on its side. The ceiling rumbled again, the panel hissing closed.

The target faded back to orange.

"Well," Dragmire said, sounding faintly out of breath. He turned back towards them, shaking his head and spraying frost into the air. His armor was, very faintly, rimed in ice.

"How are you feeling?" Link asked, and released Zelda's hand to make his way over and take Dragmire's.

"Perfectly fine," Dragmire replied. His eyes were sparkling, and he raised their joined hands slightly, like he wanted to kiss Link's knuckles. 

Zelda felt heat rise in her cheeks, and she brushed past them quickly, hopping the gap between the crescent and the half-circle and stooping to inspect the chest rather than watch them any longer. The metal was chilly even through her gloves, but she ignored it, pressing on the latch and popping the chest open. 

Something rattled out onto the icy grate— a circlet of woven silver wire, which curled over and in on itself like the crest of waves. It was heavy when she lifted it, much heavier than she would have expected even for as large as it was, and she turned it over thoughtfully in her hands. There was a clear blue stone nested in the silver wires, almost as broad as her palm and cut in an odd, flat way she’d never seen on a piece of Hyrulean jewelry.

“What did you find?” Link asked from behind her.

“A circlet of some kind,” she said, and stood, making the jump back to the crescent platform to show them. “I  _ think _ it’s sapphire.”

“May I see it?” Dragmire asked. Zelda passed it over to him, and he held it up to the light, keen gold eyes focusing intently on it. “It’s sapphire, alright,” he said, thoughtfully, and brushed his fingers across the face of the gem. “It’s also magework. The stone was shaped specifically for use as a focus.”

“How can you tell?” Zelda asked, leaning against his arm to study it again.

“The way the stone is shaped,” Dragmire said “This isn’t a conventional jewelry cut— a focus is cut and faced so energy flows most readily through it, so a mage can channel more power more efficiently.” He paused, then snorted. “...This would have been  _ much _ more convenient to have coming in here.”

“Well, at least we have it now, right?” Link said. “In case we need it later?”

Zelda hesitated, her eyes darting from Link— leaning against Dragmire’s side as if for warmth— up to Dragmire’s face. He watched her in turn, as if waiting for her to say something about it. About the way his hand lingered on Link’s waist.

“I think you should hold onto it,” she said.

Dragmire arched a brow at her, and she read the surprise clearly in his expression.

Then he turned the circlet over in his hands again and settled it on his brow, so the sapphire rested over the center of his forehead.

“Well?” he asked, and tilted his head with a rakish grin.

“Lovely,” Link said.

“Silver is  _ not _ your color,” Zelda replied, grinning back.

Dragmire scoffed, mock-offended, and Zelda laughed and slipped past him, heading down the curve of the crescent towards the third target, which glowed invitingly on the wall. It was all too easy, she thought, and drew another ice arrow from her quiver. Nocked. Drew. Her breath fogged gently in the chilly air as she loosed, letting the arrow strike home.

The floor rumbled again, setting the water quivering, and again the thin skin of ice broke as the third set of platforms rose through it, shedding frigid water off their sides as they settled into place at the top. The door, tucked just around the corner at the center of the semicircular platform, shivered in its place. The crest of Nayru lit up on its face, and the wall rumbled softly as it rolled aside, opening onto the room beyond.

"Nice job, Zelda," Link said, bumping up against her shoulder.

"It was nothing," she said. Then she hesitated, her gut twisting again. "Really. This all feels...too easy. It's just a bunch of simple puzzles— surely there's something we've missed?"

"I don't think so," Link said.

Zelda's grip tightened on her bow, and she slung it back over her back before she could damage the wood. Something just didn't feel right— the temple of Farore had been a veritable maze underground, and she had dreamed of the dead Gerudo in pursuit for nights after the Temple of Din. Surely Nayru's temple wouldn't be a simple, straightforward set of logic puzzles?

She sighed quietly and sprang forward onto the next crescent platform, and from there onto the semicircle, letting Link and Dragmire hurry after her. Their boots rang on the grates, which swayed under the weight.

Stepping onto solid ground in the third room was a relief.

At least, until Link and Dragmire crossed through behind her and the door's machinery  _ roared _ as it slammed shut. Zelda stifled a shriek.

"Oh, what the fuck," Link said. Zelda turned in time to watch him push the face of the Slate against the door, tapping hollowly at its unyielding face. "...It won't open. I think it's locked."

"And I think that may be a problem," Dragmire said. "Did either of you notice the giant heap of  _ bones _ on the floor?"

Zelda felt his words like a bolt between her shoulderblades. She whipped around, snatching for her bow as her eyes fell on what he'd spotted.

A heap of bones indeed. She hadn't seen them when she first entered— the floor in this room was blue with ice, and the bones were the same hue and texture, but they were certainly bones. The identifiable ones in the heap on the floor were far, far too large to have ever belonged to a humanlike being. The pile was surmounted with a skull, half-again the size of even a Gerudo's head, though it wasn't shaped like a moblin's. Or any monster Zelda was familiar with, for that matter. The eye sockets were deep, the browbones prominent, sweeping up into spikes along the sides of the cranium. Spikes sprouted from the lower mandible as well, sweeping back along the jaw.

And then, abruptly, the empty orbits filled with magenta Malice-light.

The jaw chattered. Magenta light crackled over the pile. The skull lifted, vertebrae following. The clavicle snapped into place, the sternum and ribs. The spine snapped and popped, rippling up into place in a way spines were never meant to move. Zelda grabbed for her bow as the pelvis crackled into place, as the femurs settled and the legs reassembled themselves. The mandible worked, chattering at them and snapping teeth like ice floes. The stal—  _ was _ it a stal?— held a hand, and something else snapped up from the floor into its skeletal palm.

A halberd.

It swung the blade around, pointing the spear-tip at them, and chattered menacingly, then began to circle, and Zelda's stomach clenched. Goddess, it was half again as big as Dragmire—

Link unsheathed the Sword with a sound like a bell and stepped past her, raising the blade defensively. The stal clacked its jaw again and thrust. Link swatted the blow aside.

A hand landed on her shoulder, and a moment later she felt Dragmire's sideburn brush her ear. "Link and I will give you space to maneuver," he said quietly. "You keep sharp with that bow; if you see an opportunity you  _ take _ it, understand?"

"Understood," Zelda said.

Dragmire stepped past her, moving to flank the stal. Link darted in, Sword flashing. Got up under its guard—

The stal struck him across the chest with the haft of its spear and sent him tumbling.

Dragmire was on it in an instant. His scimitars sang, striking hammer-blows on the shaft of the halberd. The stal moved back. And back. And back. Slashed with the halberd's axe-face. Dragmire swayed back. His grip on his left blade reversed, dropped pommel-first towards the skull.

The strike shattered the right side of the cranium, and the stal  _ shrieked _ and shoved him backwards. Ice fell, ringing to the floor. Malice poured through the gap, splattering the ground as the stal retreated and melting holes in the floor.

Link surged up from behind, the Sword thrusting point-first between the ribs. The stal screamed again and turned, swinging with the haft. Link  _ twisted _ the blade and rolled free. Ribs shattered and crashed to the tiles.

Zelda dropped her hand to her quiver and let her fingers dance over her arrows. Which to choose? Malice dripped from the shattered bones, dripping and oozing, but  _ most _ of the material was still encased in...

_ Ice _ .

Her hand closed on one of her precious fire arrows. She pulled it free immediately, nocking and drawing back, waiting for the stal to still. Dragmire was forcing it back, his blades a blur. Link struck from the sides, a wolf nipping at its heels. Dragmire ducked, the halberd soaring through the space where his head had been.

Zelda loosed her arrow.

The tip struck home between the skull's empty eye sockets. The ruby tip  _ shattered _ in a gout of flame, and the stal  _ wailed _ . Water and malice dripped and splattered. Bones liquefied. She fumbled for a second arrow, one of her ambers.

Dragmire yelped, and she saw his hand flash out, grabbing Link by the back of his coat and towing him backwards. The rest of the ice melted, splashing out towards them. The floor cracked and shuddered as the Malice ate into it, sinking down through ice and into stone. And out of sight.

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Link gasped.

"Are you two alright?" Zelda asked, slinging her bow back over her shoulder. She picked her way forward past the places where Malice had pockmarked the floor, to the edge of the yawning hole where the main body of the stal had melted.

"We're fine," Dragmire said, a little breathless. He hadn't let go of Link's coat, and his eyes were wide.

"I've  _ never _ seen a monster do that," Link said. Her eyes dropped to his hands— to his white-knuckled grip on the Sword's hilt. "They don't just...lose their shapes like that."

"...Maybe it was the cold?" Zelda asked. "It might be reacting differently under the current conditions..."

Dragmire shook his head. "I've fought lizalfos in the highlands before, and they  _ also _ went up in smoke when they're killed. I've never seen one melt before."

"Me either," Link said.

Zelda sighed quietly. They were right— her grandmother's journals were full of notes on monsters, on their behavior, on the ways they died, and nowhere was it mentioned that they ever  _ returned _ to liquid Malice. She eyed the gaping hole in the floor warily.

"...And I suppose it's too much to hope doing  _ that _ made the door unlock," she said.

Link stilled and glanced around, eyes widening. "Right, did either of you see the door  _ forward _ —?"

"Alcove near the door we came in through," Dragmire said, and gestured vaguely over his shoulder.

Zelda turned, and, sure enough, there was a niche where the room turned a corner, pushing the wall back into the previous room. The door wasn't on that wall, however, but on the wall abutting it— and, in the center of the door, was Nayru's crest, glowing brilliant blue. Zelda heaved a sigh of relief.

"Shall we?" Dragmire asked.

"Of course," Zelda said, and made her way over to the door, laying her hand against it. 

The wall rumbled, and the door rolled back, revealing a small, square room on the other side. A sigil glowed on the floor— a Sheikah eye in the center of a circle, rimmed with glowing glyphs.

" _ That _ looks like a shrine elevator," Link said, peering over her shoulder.

"And I suppose that's our way onward," she replied. "Not forward, but down."

"Let's hope the  _ Malice _ isn't down there," Dragmire said.

Zelda shushed him, reaching back to grab his wrist and pull him forward, onto the elevator. Link bounded after them, grabbing Dragmire's other hand as he did. The floor beneath them shivered as his boots touched it, registering the presence of the Slate, and began to descend. The cream-pale walls that slid past them were marked over with symbols, and Zelda reached out carefully to trail her fingers over them. If they’d been moving any more slowly, she would have begged Link to pull out the Slate so she could take a pictograph, to study them later.

The platform came to a smooth stop less than a minute later, and Zelda stepped off it and out of its alcove into the next room. The space was long and rectangular— and utterly empty.

No, not utterly. A pressure-plate sat in the corner to the right of the alcove, just barely covered with a layer of half-frozen water. The door was on the opposite end of the room, on their same wall, and when she made her way over to inspect it, it proved to be locked.

"...Well, then," she said, and turned back to face the other two, who lingered near the elevator. "Opening this is going to have something to do with that plate, but I don't believe there's anything in  _ here _ to leave on it..."

"Why don't we..." Dragmire started, then paused and made his way over to the pressure plate, stepping on it.

The door clicked behind Zelda, and when she reached out to touch it, it whirred open, revealing another empty room behind it. Dragmire stepped off the plate, and the door slammed shut immediately. Zelda flinched back.

"Well," Link said. "That seems inconvenient."

"Step on it again," Zelda said.

Dragmire obliged, and the door clicked again. When he stepped off, there was a second click— locking and unlocking with weight on the switch.

"So we need to leave something on it, something heavy enough to flip the switch, for long enough to pass through the door," she said.

"Magnesis doesn't reach that far, and I'm not going to leave the sledgehammer behind," Link said.

"...How much weight does it require?" Dragmire asked. "Link, will you—?"

"Yeah, of course," Link said, and stepped onto the plate. The door clicked— evidently he was heavy enough to trigger it too. He paused and stepped off, then stepped back on again— and stamped his boot in the slushy water beside the plate, spraying water. "...I wonder if this is deep enough for cryonis?"

He stepped back, pulling Dragmire along with him, and pulled the Slate from its place on his belt. His fingers darted across the screen. Then he lifted the Slate and aimed it at the water, washing the wall in pale blue light. From this angle Zelda couldn't see his face, but his quiet chuckle was clear enough. He tapped the screen.

A pillar of ice as tall as Link and twice as broad grew from the puddle, shooting up fast enough that Dragmire flinched back, and the door behind Zelda clicked open.

"Well, that's convenient," Zelda said, and put her hand on the door, opening it again.

"Yeah, I'll say," Link said. 

He tucked the Slate back into its case and made his way over to the door as well, peering into the next room. He didn't cross the threshold, though, and something about his stillness made the hair on the back of Zelda's neck stand on end. She turned and followed his gaze, inspecting the room for the first time.

The room on the other side of the door was equal in length to the one they currently stood in, and perfectly rectangular, and perfectly empty. The floor was different from the other floors had been— rather than pale cream, the tiles were colored— white tiles, golden tiles, tiles patterned in red and blue and green, all laid irregularly across the floor. They were  _ larger _ , too, easily twice as large— both length and width— as the ones covering the rest of the temple’s floors.

"...Okay,  _ that _ looks weird," Link said. He stepped through the door onto the first tile, one of the tricolored ones, and tapped his foot, his head tilting. "...Sounds  _ hollow _ , too."

"Was there anything like this in the temple you two visited before?" Dragmire asked from over her shoulder. Zelda glanced back at him, noting his furrowed brows.

"Nope," Link said. He crossed the first tile and stepped onto the second, a white one, and tapped his foot. "...This one sounds hollow too. I  _ really _ don't like that."

"Are all of them hollow?" Zelda asked.

Link took a couple more steps out, passing from the white tile to another tricolored one, and tapped his foot again. "...Yeah, it sounds like it, but...they feel stable enough. I think it's just a weird room."

"...It may have had some ceremonial purpose at some point," Dragmire said. He stepped out after Link, crossing the first tile, then paused before he reached the second, looking back at her. "Zelda, are you coming?"

"Yes, give me a second," she said. Her stomach clenched again as she stepped onto the tile, part of her expecting to fall away beneath her at any second.

When it didn't she made her way over to Dragmire, pausing at the edge of the tile, then took a step onto the white one, intending to cross over to Link.

The tile rumbled under her foot. Shuddered. And then she felt it begin to slide—

Dragmire caught her by the forearm and pulled her back onto the tricolored one, to solid ground, as the white tile dropped away into nothing. The darkness below was dizzying. Zelda grabbed at his cloak for stability, grasping for breath.

" _ Fuck _ ," Link said.

"Are you okay?" Dragmire asked, pulling her closer and taking a step back from the hole in the floor.

"Yeah, I'm alright," Zelda gasped. She was shaking, she realized, and clutched harder at his cloak. His grip tightened around her back, and she leaned into the hold, pressing her face against his arm and breathing deeply to steady herself.

"...Well, now we know what  _ this _ room does," Link said. His voice trembled. Fabric and leather rustled, and then he said, "And....this really doesn't look good. All the white and gold tiles show as active objects in the stasis rune."

"...Lovely," Zelda said, and managed to raise her face from its place against Dragmire's arm, turning to scan the room. 

Most of the tiles, she realized, were white or gold— the tricolor ones were scattered intermittently across the space, forming a winding path towards the door on the far side of the room. The white ones were most common, and the gold ones even more intermittent, but even so...

"They must respond to weight," Dragmire said. "Link isn't large enough to trigger them, but you or I..."

"Yeah," Zelda said.

There was another tricolored tile touching theirs corner-to-corner, and Zelda carefully released her grip on Dragmire to cross over to it, and from there to Link's tricolored tile. She peeked over his shoulder at the screen of the Slate, where he still had the stasis interface open— the room was  _ awash _ in gold, almost all of the tiles lit up. Dragmire's boots tapped on the tile, and she felt the weight of his presence at her shoulder.

"...So, what exactly does  _ stasis _ do?" he asked.

"Essentially, it places a temporal 'lock' on an object," Zelda said. "Any force applied to an object under stasis is converted into momentum— enough force can knock even the largest boulders airborne with stasis applied. It can  _ also _ be used to hold moving objects in place—"

"So we could use it to hold tiles long enough for you two to cross," Link said, turning to look at her. His eyes had lit up. "We just...have to be careful about it."

"It only lasts for fifteen seconds," Zelda said, glancing back at Dragmire, who nodded.

"Can it be applied to multiple objects at once?" he asked.

"Nope, just one," Link said.

Zelda looked up from the Slate, scanning the room again. The next tricolored tile was further towards the far end of the room and to their right, on the other side of another white tile. The tiles around that one were all white, and there was another white tile between  _ that _ one and the one nearest the door, but...

"How  _ long _ do the white ones take to slide, do you think?" she asked. "I wasn't paying attention on the last one, but—"

"We could test it," Dragmire said, and turned to the white tile to their right. "Link, would you mind—"

"Already on it," he said. "When I see you start to drop I'll hit stasis, and you get back to safety, got it?"

"Got it," Dragmire said. "One, two, three—"

He stepped out onto the white tile.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then it shuddered beneath him— once, twice, three times—

Link slammed at the screen of the Slate just as the tile began to drop. Dragmire leapt back to safety, mere moments before stasis gave way and the tile plummeted into the abyss.

"Five seconds," Link said, a little breathless.

" _ I _ could cross one in that time," Dragmire said. "My stride is longer than either of yours, but Zelda—"

"I know," she said.

"So how do you think we should do this?" Link asked.

"We'll put the white tile between this one and the next tricolor in stasis and cross," Zelda said. And then...I suppose we'll just have to run for it at the next crossing."

"...I wonder about the gold tiles," Dragmire said. "We know they  _ also _ move, but if Link can walk on the white..."

"We can check at the next one," Link said. "There's a gold tile next to it, and I can hit stasis if anything goes wrong."

"I'll check it," Zelda said. "It might have a different weight requirement, and— no offense, Dragmire—"

"I know how much I weigh," Dragmire said. "Now, how long do we intend to stand here  _ talking _ instead of crossing?"

Link turned in reply and tapped the Slate again, and bright gold light flashed around the white tile between them and the next tricolor. Zelda darted across it, hearing the thunder of Dragmire's boots on her heels as he sprinted after her, and came to a skidding stop on the tricolor just as stasis broke with a sound like a bell.

The white tile, thankfully, didn't budge, and Link walked across it a moment later, joining them on the other side.

"Alright," he said. "Gold tile test?"

"I'm ready," Zelda said, and made her way to the edge abutting the gold tile. Its surface shimmered, gently reflective, and she waited for Link to give her the signal.

At his nod, she stepped out onto the tile. She stood, tense, ready to leap to safety at a moment's notice— but nothing happened. The tile was still and stable under her feet.

"Well, that's nice to know," Dragmire said sourly.

"It's certainly useful," Zelda said, stepping back onto the tricolor. She turned back toward the door, their goal, scouting a path. A white and a gold tile sat between them and the one at the door— the second gold abutting theirs, the white against the doorway, and she frowned thoughtfully. "...Link, stasis will reach the gold tile from the door, right?"

"Right," he said.

"Then you should cross first," she said. "You won't tip any tiles, so it'll be safest for you, and then—"

"You'll go after him," Dragmire said. "You'll only need one tile held, so it'll remain in place after you cross. And...Link, hold the golden tile for me. We don't know how long they take to drop, so it's safer for me if I just...get across the white as quickly as possible."

"...Are you sure?" Link asked. "It seems risky."

"Those are our best odds," Zelda said. "I don't like it either, but..."

"...Then we'll do it," Link said. 

He made his way to the edge of the gold tile, took a deep breath, and darted across, sliding to a stop on the tricolor. Then he turned around and faced them, pulling the Slate out of its pouch again. 

"I'll put the white one in stasis on three," he called. "Zelda, are you ready?"

"Ready when you are," she said.

Link nodded. "Alright. One...two...three—"

Zelda dashed forward. The gold tile flew under her feet, and the white flashed golden the instant before her boots touched it, propelling her across. She skidded to a stop on the tricolor, nearly crashing into the wall, and braced against it, gasping for breath. She shook herself, then turned back towards Dragmire, who lingered on the other tricolor, waiting as the stasis on the white one chimed and broke.

"I'm ready, Link," he called. Link nodded grimly and tapped the screen. Gold light flashed around the golden tile.

Dragmire leapt forward. He crossed the gold one in moments, but the instant his feet touched the white it shuddered. Began to slide. She saw his eyes go wide and darted forward herself. Reached out and caught hold of his forearm.

The tile slipped. He dropped hard— she held him fast. His armor rang as he crashed against the side of the tricolored tile. His other hand grabbed onto the edge beside her as her knees struck the floor, trying to pull him up. He scrabbled for purchase, fingers sliding on the polished surface of the tile.

“ _ Din preserve me _ ,” Dragmire gasped. He tried to pull himself up, shoulders straining, and slipped another inch. Zelda hissed a breath and dug her fingers into his forearm, tightening her grip enough to bruise. “There’s nothing— nothing to brace on, it just—  _ drops off _ after two feet—”

“I’ve got you,” Zelda said. She took hold of his pauldron, and carefully released his forearm, grabbing his upper arm instead. Dragmire hissed and braced both arms against the tile, pushing up. And gained an inch. He tilted his face back looking up at her—

His gold eyes went wide, and the color drained from his face.

"...Zelda, don't look up now," he said softly, "but the Malice is on the ceiling." Zelda froze, and her eyes darted upwards—

Dragmire reached up and grabbed her chin. She felt him slide another inch and grabbed at him again, bracing herself to keep him from sliding. His leather glove was smooth and cool on her face. His thumb brushed her lip.

"I said, don't look up," he said. "You're going to have to let me go. It's going to fall, and you need to  _ shoot _ it before it does, or neither of us are walking out of here."

"And what about you?" she hissed back. "I'm  _ not _ letting go of you unless I  _ know _ you won't fall."

"I can support myself here," he replied, and let go of her, bracing against the tile again. "Zelda,  _ please _ . You can come back for me when we know the Malice won't kill us both."

"I don't—" she started.

He opened his mouth to answer her— but then his eyes darted upwards and flew wide. He surged upwards. Planted a palm in the center of her chest and  _ shoved _ . Zelda topped back with a yelp, losing her grip on his pauldron. Her head struck the floor with a crack, and she saw white behind her eyes.

And then she saw the ceiling. The Malice— from the stal, that was the only thing it could be— hung suspended, a dark droplet swelling on the edge of a crack. It glistened darkly and shivered, fattening on itself as its tether stretched.

As its tether snapped. The globule plummeted. Zelda surged upright, grabbing for her bow.

Not fast enough. Time slowed. The Malice plunged. Struck Dragmire over his head and shoulders. She saw his hands slip—

—And then he was gone, over the edge with a cut-off shriek.

"No!" she screamed, and lunged forward.

Link grabbed her by the back of the coat and hauled her back. She shrieked again and pulled against him— but Link was stronger, and he dragged her— away from the edge, over the threshold into the next room. The door slid shut behind them. Zelda threw herself against it, but it didn't budge.

"No!" she shouted again. "No—  _ no _ , Link, we can't—"

"I won't lose you too!" Link shouted back. His arms were around her, pulling her back against his chest. "I won't. I can't, Zelda,  _ please _ —"

He was shaking. Zelda turned herself around in his grip and pressed her face against his shoulder, gasping, unable to cry. His shaking felt like stifled sobs. His fingers dug into her back through her coat, almost hard enough to bruise.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I—I tried, I can't—we can't  _ leave _ him, Link—"

"I don't want to," he whispered back, his voice choked. "But you— I can’t— I can’t lose  _ you _ —”

His voice broke, and he buried his face in her chest, hiccuping with sobs. She held him tighter, pressed her face against his head and clung. Her hands were shaking. The world was shards of glass and ice, and she let herself go numb.

Her hands dropped to the Slate’s case, and she pulled it free and fumbled it on. Link lifted his head, his reddened eyes gone wide, and he pushed himself closer to her, watching.

“...What are you—” he started.

“There  _ has _ to be something on the map,” Zelda said. “I can’t— he  _ has _ to be somewhere. We’re going to get him  _ back _ .”

Her hands were shaking  _ too _ badly to operate the Slate. Link took it from her, navigating to the map view, and Zelda bit her lip hard enough to taste blood. The map was floor-by-floor, and the one below them was smaller and the wrong shape, there was no way—

Link tapped at a setting on the side of the screen, and the layers went transparent and rearranged themselves— into a top-down, overlapping view. Their place was marked, the third room of the second floor, and Zelda heaved a sound that would have been a sob if her suddenly-tight throat let it come out any louder.

The place Dragmire had fallen was over a portion of the third floor, the circular room in the center.

"We're going down there," she said.

"We won't leave him," Link agreed, and shoved the Slate back into its pouch, taking her hands. "We won't. We'll get him."

Zelda stilled, then, and swallowed hard. "...Link, what if he's—"

" _ Don't _ ," Link said. His eyes went dark, and Zelda bit her lip.

She knew he knew what she was thinking, though. If the third floor were as far down from them as the second was from the first— and even if it wasn't, the Malice had struck him. She knew what Malice did to people. Her grandmother's notes had come with diagrams; a drawing of her grandfather's side, mapped with deep violet whorls where the Calamity or a Blight had struck him, various sketches of other Hylians, all scarred in the same liquid pattern. Like an acid, her grandmother's notes had said.

She shook herself.

"We have to be quick about it," she said, and stood, pulling Link up with her. She turned towards the other end of the room, where the door to the elevator would be.

And froze. The wall where the door should have been was entirely blank, save for a bas-relief carving of the Triforce engraved over the center of the wall. There was a line of script beneath it, and even from a distance she recognized ancient Sheikah writing. She released Link's hands and hurried to it, kneeling in front of the wall and laying her hands on the stone, trying to breathe. To center herself. To read.

"What does it say?" Link asked.

_ “The flow of Time is always cruel; precious memories fade as sparks in the wind. Sing, O Goddess, the song that wakes flames from embers and opens the Gate of Time,” _ Zelda said. The words flowed easily— not like a translation. They spilled from her lips like water, like they’d been waiting on her tongue since the moment she was born.

“...And what does that  _ mean _ , exactly?” Link asked.

“I...don’t know,” she said quietly. “I don’t  _ know _ . The song that opens the gate of time— it  _ has _ to—  _ why don’t I _ know _ this _ ?”

The words left her as a hysterical shriek, and she slammed her hands against the wall, gasping at the pain. That was all it took. A sob clawed its way up her throat and burst out of her, and she sank against the wall, pressing her forehead against the smooth, cold stone. Why didn’t she know? What crucial gap was in her grandmother’s knowledge, in the knowledge of her foremothers, that she wouldn’t  _ know _ this? What  _ good _ was it all if she couldn’t get past the door?

“ _ Please _ ,” she whispered. “Please— Hylia, I can’t do this—”

Something shifted. She  _ felt _ it more than anything else, a ringing through the stone of the wall. A resonance. She squeezed her eyes shut, ignoring the tears that rolled down her cheeks, and reached, feeling it hollowly behind her breastbone.

Music. A song. A thousand voices overlapping, singing words she didn’t know, but the  _ pattern _ —

She reached out from the edge of time, feeling for the contours of the song as they passed through the stone. Her mortal fingers prickled under her gloves, as though the strings of a harp rested under them. Her soul sang back to the voices in the stone, answering them note for note.

The wall her brow rested again rippled, and vanished.

Zelda opened her eyes, felt her awareness sinking back into her mortal body. She could no longer hear the ancient voices singing, though their tune resonated somewhere in her bones. It was  _ achingly _ familiar, she thought, as if she’d heard it before— and yet, she couldn’t recall where she might have learned it. She shook herself a little and looked up, into the alcove set in the wall before her. A Sheikah eye rested on the center of the floor, ringed by glowing glyphs, and she nodded to herself. Of course it would be an elevator.

One of Link’s hands came to rest on her shoulder. “Hey,” he said softly, and cupped her chin, turning her face towards him and wiping the tears from her eyes. “Are you alright?”

“...I don’t know,” she said softly. “I…...we need to get down there. Quickly.”

Link nodded, and his hands dropped to her elbows, carefully pulling her back to her feet. She let him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his shoulder for a moment. His cheek came to rest against the side of her head. She could feel the hitch in his breath, and some lingering goddess-thought told her of the ache in his chest.

“We’ll get him back, I promise,” she said softly.

Link nodded against her, but didn’t speak, and eventually she raised her head and caught his hands, pulling him back towards the elevator.

Like the last one, the platform shivered at the presence of the Slate, the glyphs underfoot growing brighter. And then it began to sink, down and down into the darkness.


	11. Chapter 10: Sword of Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we're a bit early again--by a couple days, but still. We're _also_ nearly to the end of the arc; there's one more chapter after this one! I can already tell y'all I'll be taking a hiatus at the end of this arc to work on the next one, but not how long--depending on how the next two months go, it could be as early as the end of December or as late as February. I should be able to give a more exact estimate on my next post date.

The elevator platform settled at the bottom of its shaft with a soft hiss. Zelda poked her head out of the alcove, squinting against the third floor’s oppressive dimness. The floors above had been lit brightly by the ceiling panels and sconces on the walls, but the latter were entirely absent, the former half-broken— shards of glass and twisted wire covered the floor, and the few panels that remained aloft guttered like candles. The walls were the same deep, light-eating brown as above, rimed with a fine layer of frost that crunched under her fingers as she gripped the edge of the alcove for stability.

There was nothing down the hall to the left of the alcove, only more shattered lights along the hall as it curved out of sight. The right was equally empty, and equally dim, and Zelda felt her innards begin to ice.

“Well?” Link asked quietly. She felt the heat of him against her back, the way his hand lingered at her hip as if to pull her back into the alcove at a moment’s notice.

“Nothing,” she replied. “It looks completely empty, at least from here.”

Link sighed— she felt it more than she heard it, a puff of air next to her ear. “Still, I’d keep your bow ready,” he said. “The door to the inner room is on the other side, and we don’t know where the gatekeeper is yet.”

Zelda grimaced, but nodded in response and unslung her bow from her shoulder, nocking an arrow in preparation. He was right, of course— she’d forgotten entirely about the gatekeeper in their rush to get down to the third floor. To where Dragmire had fallen.

She nearly opened her mouth to ask Link what they would do if the gatekeeper had gotten to Dragmire first, but hesitated, and bit her lip instead, swallowing down the words. She  _ wasn’t _ going to think about it. She  _ was not _ .

She stepped out into the corridor instead, peering left and right again warily. The halls remained empty. She took another step, wincing as one of the light panels crunched underfoot. Link’s boots crunched on frost behind her, and there was a soft ring of steel as he unsheathed the Sword that Seals the Darkness. The length of the blade gave off a faint, bluish glow in the dimness, casting strange shadows and reflections on the frost-coated walls.

“So, which way do you think?” she asked.

Link shrugged. “Both ways will take us to the same place, in the same amount of time,” he said, frowning thoughtfully. “But if we go to the left and the gatekeeper’s waiting for us, I’ll be able to use the wall for at least partial cover.”

“Good point,” Zelda said.

Link slipped past her to take the lead, and Zelda grimaced at his back. Left was good for a left-handed swordsman, but a right-handed archer would need to expose her whole body to take aim. She readied her bow regardless, her eyes glued to the curve of the hall ahead. The space was quiet, deathly so, broken only by the sound of their footsteps in the frost underfoot. Part of Zelda wished she held the Slate— she wanted its map, to keep an eye on their position. The entrance to the inner chamber was on the opposite side of the floor, and while  _ this _ floor was smaller than either of the upper two, it was still large enough that she couldn't be certain how far they were from their goal. How long until they'd wrapped all the way around and came back to the elevator alcove? The inner wall, she noticed now, was  _ also _ coated in frost— what if it hid the shape of the door?

And then Link balked, and she nearly collided with him. She opened her mouth to protest— he reached back and grabbed her shoulder, hissing warningly.

"Take a look," he whispered. "But be quiet. I think it's sleeping."

Zelda nearly protested— if it was the gatekeeper, she was fairly certain Malice constructs didn't  _ sleep _ — but she peered past him anyway, down the corridor.

She nearly couldn't pick it out, laying against the iced-over wall as it was, and it took her a moment to grasp the shape of the beast. This gatekeeper was animalistic— like an outsized lizalfos, maybe, but the shape was wrong— the forelimbs too long, too proportionate, and ended in massive paws with curling claws like a cat's rather than a lizalfos' grasping hands. The shape of the head was wrong, too. Blunter, more flat-faced, and the eyes didn't bulge from the skull— which terminated in a beak of ice, a shearing surface that looked heavy enough to cut plate armor like a knife through cheese. The whole of the beast was covered in it, thick, heavy plates of glossy white ice, pitted in places, through which she could see the dim magenta glow of Malice that flowed inside it. As she watched it seemed to inhale, then exhaled a cloud of frost that coated the walls and floor near its massive head.

"...So," Link whispered. "What do you think? It's blocking the door, and we won't be able to sneak past..."

"We'll have to kill it, obviously," she replied. "It's the gatekeeper. But I'm worried about the plates..."

"How many fire arrows did you say you had, again?"

"Five. But I think...." She shook herself, peered at the beast again. "...There's a spot on its breast, between the front legs, that's already gashed. If I can place my shots there, it should break open the armor enough for you to get through with the Sword."

Link nodded. "I'll draw its attention, so you have space to shoot."

Zelda nodded back, then slid her broadhead back into her quiver and drew the first of her fire arrows. She nocked carefully and drew, sighting for the weak point on the beast's breast. One breath.

She loosed on the exhale. The arrow sprang forward and struck home, ruby head shattering in the chink of its armor. The beast's eyes flew open, Maliced gaze locking on her face, and it cracked its beak and  _ roared _ . A blast of frost shot down the corridor towards them. Zelda scrambled back, out of range. The ice blocked her vision.

There was a  _ crack _ . A crunch. And then thunder. The beast surged out of the cloud of frost, shedding meltwater from the crack in its chest, though it seemed not to notice. She backed off further.

Link didn't. He shot forward instead, ducking a slash of those hooked forepaws, came up under the underbelly. The air around him shimmered. His sword blurred—

The beast struck him broadside with its tail and hurled him sideways.

Zelda shouted and nocked her second fire arrow, lining up a shot. The beast's head snapped towards her, eyes narrowing. It bellowed back, sending a gout of ice towards her. Zelda loosed.

The fire arrow cut a path through the cloud of frost and slammed home in the beast's chest. Zelda swore. She'd missed her aim by a handspan, melting into the unmarked plate beside her target.

The beast lunged for her. Zelda scrambled back, her boots slipping for purchase on the floor. She grabbed for another arrow. Green fletching. Maybe it would slow it down.

The electric arrow slammed home into the beast's head, and the topaz shattered explosively. The beast roared and arched, thrashing as emerald tendrils of lightning snapped and crackled over its body. She drew her third fire arrow. Sighted.

Loosed.

The arrow slammed home in the crack in its breast, melting the hole wider, deeper. The beast  _ screamed _ at that. Its foreleg buckled.

Then it pushed itself back upright, snorting ice at her. Zelda backed further down the corridor.

"Link!" she shouted.

No response.

She opened her mouth to call again, but the beast surged forward, galloping at her. She turned on her heel and bolted back down the corridor. Her boots skidded. The beast kept coming.

Then she hit a slick patch and her boots went out from under her. She went down hard on her right hip and swore— pain shocked up her side from the impact. The beast thundered closer, rearing up over her head. Claws open like swords.

Zelda snatched an arrow and loosed it into the beast's face. Lightning crackled over it again. It screamed and toppled back, and Zelda scrambled back to her feet. She drew a second arrow. Her fourth fire. Aimed. Loosed.

The beast's tail lashed out at that moment, swatting her arrow out of the air. The ruby head shattered in a gout of flame, and the beast screamed in fury. Zelda backed away further as it fought to rise. She turned and ran for it before it could. She could see the elevator alcove up around the corner— if she could get to it, if it was  _ small _ enough—

The beast's paws thumped on the floor. She vented a scream as her boots went out again. Slammed into the wall. Caught herself. Scrambled up again.

She wouldn't make it. She turned. Nocked, drew, released on instinct.

The arrow— her final fire arrow— struck home. The beast screamed, loosing another blast of ice that coated her head-to-toe in frost. The plate on its breast cracked alarmingly.

But not enough. It was still intact. Still shielding the core of Malice. Water and thick, viscous magenta dripped from the crack to sizzle on the floor.

Still. Too thick to puncture with one of her amber arrowheads. She began to back away again, fumbling in her quiver. Bomb arrow?

No. Quarters too close. Electricity would only slow it down. Ice was less than useless. And she could waste every broadhead in her quiver and still not open a large enough chink in the armor.

The beast rose again, tail lashing, and roared at her. The blast of frost struck her again. She  _ felt _ the joints of her coat and trousers lock with ice. Strained against it, felt them crackle. The beast stalked forward. Its maw opened, shearing beak ready.

Something shot past her. A streak of green. The beast reared up on its hind legs, and something struck it in the chest and slammed it backwards.

Link. The sledgehammer was in his hands. A blue nimbus haloed him— she felt it like a bell against her soul. 

He swung the hammer again, and with a ringing crack the beast's plating cracked open. Malice gouted from the wound. Link danced back. Dropped the hammer. Swung the Sword free of its sheath in the same instant.

She didn't even  _ see _ him land the blow, but she  _ felt _ it ringing in the air. The beast wailed. The ice that made up its body began to crackle, snapping off in little bursts and swirls of frost and floating towards the ceiling, until at last there was nothing. Link stood there, breast heaving, then turned towards her and sheathed the Sword.

The ice holding her in place shattered. Zelda stumbled, and Link lunged forward, catching her at the elbows and holding her up.

"Are you alright?" he gasped. She clutched at his arms and tried to catch her breath— she was shaking in every limb. He was trembling too, she noted. His face was scraped raw on the left side, she noticed. Particles of ice were still embedded in his skin.

"I— fine," she managed. "Goddess, I thought you'd been  _ killed _ when it hit you—"

"I'm alright," he said. "Bruised, but— I thought I wouldn't make it. I couldn't get past it. I'm sorry—"

" _ Don't _ ," she said. "You saved my life, you dumbass— I would have been done for if you hadn't—"

" _ Alright _ ," he said, and pulled her into a hug. 

She squeezed him back, then released, letting him go and retrieve the hammer, which he vanished back into the Slate. Then he turned back towards her and grabbed her hand, squeezing.

"Come on," she said. "We've got to get back to the other door. I— we can't have much time left, before Dragmire—"

“I know,” Link said, and squeezed her hand more tightly. Worry had drawn a furrow between his brows.

He turned, back to their left, and as one they made for the door, their boots pounding on the swift-melting frost underfoot. The walls were melting too, Zelda noticed, rivulets of water rolling down and revealing pictograms behind them. Part of her wanted to grab the Slate off Link’s hip, to snap pictures, but there wasn’t  _ time _ —

They made the door much more quickly than they had the first time, and Link slammed his free hand against it, hard enough that Zelda could see the shock of impact up his arm. His jaw worked, teeth gritting. The door didn’t respond.

“Come  _ on _ —” he breathed. His face tightened. “Come on,  _ please _ …”

“The  _ Slate _ ,” Zelda said, and pulled it from its pouch again, pressing the face of it up against the door.

The crest of Nayru lit up instantly, bright blue against the brown surface, and the walls rumbled as the door rolled aside, sloughing ice from its surface. Link grabbed the Slate back, and together they hurried through, crossing the threshold into the room beyond. They hardly made it over, however, before Zelda froze. The pit of her stomach flooded with ice.

There was a heap of Malice in the center of the floor, surrounded by the shattered remains of a white tile. It seemed much,  _ much _ larger than it had before—  _ too _ large to have come from a stal. The surface of it gleamed slickly, loose swirls of magenta over the black shifting as it pulsed, an open wound to the viscera of the world. A globule of it rose slowly from the heap, like a droplet of water in reverse. An eye opened, yellow iris veined through with black and magenta, stark and staring against the wet black of its sclera. The heap pulsed again.

“ _ Goddess _ ,” Zelda whispered, and covered her mouth. Bile stung the back of her throat.

Link stared unblinkingly at the Dark Watcher, his blue eyes gone dark. His hand dropped to the Slate at his hip, and when he tapped the eye a bow materialized in his hand with a flash of light. He raised the bow. Nocked a broadhead. Drew. She could see his hands shaking.

He loosed, and the broadhead punched  _ through _ the Watcher. Malice sprayed like blood across the floor behind it, and the heap began to shrink in on itself, burning away in flakes of shadow and light.

But not enough. A pile remained, just slightly larger than Dragmire would have been and throbbing like a heart. Knotted veins swelled across its surface.

Link’s knees buckled. He dropped to the floor, shoulders heaving, the bow clattering from his fingers. His eyes flooded with tears. “...We’re too late,” he whispered, choking on the words.

Something  _ roared _ in Zelda’s ears, heat clawing its way up from her stomach and out of her throat. “We are  _ not _ !” she snapped, and held her hands out in front of her. The heat curled its way up her back, spreading across her palms in a tide of liquid gold. “We are  _ not _ too late— I won’t  _ let _ us be!”

Gold fell over her eyes like a veil, and the room around her burned brighter. Blue columns stood all around her, at the edges of the room, and some part of her knew they were Guidance Stones she hadn’t noticed when they crossed the threshold. They whispered to her, but she ignored them, glowering at the heap of Malice before her.

It looked nearly the same to her goddess’ eyes, thickly black and webbed through with magenta light, flowing and curling with vile energy— but she could see behind and beneath it now, to what it covered. To the form curled beneath the blanket of Malice, shining crimson and gold through the thick blackness over it. It too pulsed with energy. With life.

_ “We are  _ not _ too late,” _ she said, in the voice of a tolling bell, and thrust her hands forward, shoving.

The Malice resisted, curling up more tightly over Dragmire’s form, and she saw a quickening beneath, the gold spreading and curling through the crimson light of him. She thrust again, stepping forward to drive the light. It curled and built within her like a wave, like a great wind, and she bared her teeth and felt the gold spill between them. The Malice arched and twisted, shrinking in on itself as it burned away under her palms, baring the black of Dragmire’s armor, his coat, his body turned to face away from her, curled up on his left side. His cloak was gone. His ruby brooch clattered to the floor. Thick red hair fell loosely about his shoulders, fraying from its braid.

The light faded, burning away from her eyes, and she caught her breath and her balance to keep from falling, stumbling forward to roll Dragmire over to face her. He was breathing, she noted, and relief flooded her veins like meltwater. He didn’t look injured, either— there were no Malice burns over any of the exposed skin she could see. His eyelids fluttered a moment.

Then he sat bolt upright, almost knocking her back, and gasped for breath, then coughed violently, like he was trying to expel Malice from his lungs. Nothing came up. He doubled over, heaving for air, until at last his gasps subsided. He raised his head, then, blinking dazedly at her and Link.

“Oh, thank Hylia,” Zelda whispered.

Link darted past her like a shot, throwing his arms around Dragmire’s neck and almost knocking him back over. “ _ Goddess _ —” His voice was choked, Zelda could hear the tears in it, she didn’t need to see his face. “Don’t  _ ever _ do that to me again, I thought—”

“—I’m alright—” Dragmire gasped. His arms flew up, wrapping tightly around Link and pulling him close. “I’m okay. I’m okay—”

Link gave another muffled sob and buried his face against Dragmire’s neck. Zelda’s heart clenched. She could see the way Dragmire’s fingers tightened in the fabric of Link’s coat as he pulled him even closer, and she bit her lip uncertainly, not sure if it was appropriate to leave them to it. Link’s shoulders trembled— he was quiet now, but she was  _ certain _ he was crying.

“...It’s alright,” Dragmire murmured gently. “I’m right here. I promise.”

Eventually the shaking in Link’s shoulders subsided, and he slowly raised his face from Dragmire’s neck. His cheeks were wet. Dragmire reached up gently, cupping his face in both hands and wiping his tears away. There was a pause, and Zelda looked away as he leaned in, letting him and Link have what privacy she could afford them.

She turned her gaze to the rest of the room instead, taking in the space for the first time. The Guidance Stones she had seen through the eyes of the goddess were there, all glowing faintly with blue light— but her eyes were drawn to the wall behind them. 

Every inch of space around the Stones was covered in pictograms. The stylization was similar to the murals her grandmother’s expeditions had uncovered in relation to the Divine Beasts— the same blocky, stylized human forms, the curling shapes of beasts and other beings. There were five Guidance Stones, placed equidistantly around the room; two flanking the door, two midway along the walls, one directly opposite, and the pictograms behind each were different. The one to the right of the door, when she turned to face it, was familiar, the black wraithlike form of Calamity Ganon arched over the Guidance Stone, flanked by the shapes of the Princess who Carried the Blood of the Goddess and the Hero bearing the Sword that Seals the Darkness. The one on the left of the door was unfamiliar— she recognized the stylized shape of her ancestress from the other, but this girl bore  _ wings _ like depictions of the Goddess. The shape of the Hero stood beside her as well, his head haloed by the form of the Triforce, and a blue-painted figure she didn’t recognize arced over them both, wings spread to either side like a shield.

She turned, scanning the pictograms. Two more of her ancestresses— one holding the hilt of a broken sword in her hands, the other a sphere of light— two more Heroes, both rendered in varicolored paint. And then her eyes came to rest on the Guidance Stone opposite the door. The pictogram behind this one was different— there were no human forms in it at all. Instead, the Triforce was centered on the wall, a great beast curling around each piece. The stylized form of a boar stood rampant over Power, a great wolf howled beside Courage, an owl wrapped vast wings about Wisdom.

Something about the sight of it chilled her.

“...Zelda?” Dragmire asked, and she dropped her gaze back to him, meeting his unblinking golden eyes. He was still holding Link, she noted, but they were done kissing, and both of them watched her intently.

“Are you alright?” she asked, making her way back over to him.

“I believe so,” he said, and stood slowly. Link pressed against his side, supporting him, and he swayed slightly before catching himself. “Just....dizzy. I feel like I struck my head on something.”

“That fall alone should have done much worse than that, let alone the Malice,” Zelda said, unable to keep the snap out of her tone. “ _ How _ are you alright?”

Dragmire’s cheeks flushed red, and he reached down and pulled down the edge of one of his gauntlets, baring a gleaming gold band at his wrists. Several pieces of amber were set into it, shining dully in the light. “Shield bracelets,” he said sheepishly. “I...I must have activated them on the way down, but I can’t  _ remember _ now— but they’re drained of energy, see, so they  _ must _ have been active.”

“...That makes sense, I suppose,” she said. “And you’re sure you’re alright? No broken bones or anything?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said. “Are  _ you _ alright?”

“I’m...fine,” she said.

Dragmire released his hold on Link, steadying himself, and Link let go of him in turn. He made his way over to her, pausing in front of her— and then his arms darted out and she found herself pulled against him in a tight hug. She hugged back almost on reflex, pressing her face against his shoulder.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“You don’t need to thank me,” she murmured back.

Dragmire sighed quietly, and his arms tightened around her a moment before he released her. Then he stepped back, gazing wide-eyed around the room. “...What  _ is _ this place?” he asked.

“I  _ believe _ it may be a repository of histories of the Calamity,” Zelda said. She pointed to the first Guidance Stone, the one with the pictograms she knew. “This one is the story of the Divine Beasts, I recognize it from my grandmother’s work. And these four—” she pointed, in turn, to each of the four Stones nearer to the door— “all depict a Goddess-Blood Princess and a Chosen Hero, so it stands to reason they have something to do with the Calamity.”

“...So what about the other one?” Dragmire asked, and nodded towards the fifth and final Stone.

“...I don’t know,” Zelda said.

“It definitely doesn’t look like any of the other ones,” Link said. He reached down and tapped the Slate at his hip. “Want me to go and collect the information from that one?”

Zelda nodded. “Of course,” she said. “We can’t study it now, but if it contains a history we may want it  _ later _ — especially because it’s not like the others.”

Link hurried over to it without further prompting, setting the Slate down into the glowing place on the pedestal beneath it. The face lit orange, and the Stone began to glow more brightly, lines of blue text scrolling down its face and coalescing at the tip in a brilliant blue droplet. This one swelled more than the one upstairs had— and the moment it dropped, a second droplet began to build at the tip. And then a third, after which the pedestal  _ finally _ released the Slate into Link’s waiting hands. He tapped at the screen a couple times, then looked up and met Zelda's eyes.

"...This thing's  _ huge _ ," he said. "Looks like it's mostly text, but I can't read ancient Sheikah."

"Let me see?" Zelda asked, making her way over to him and peering over his shoulder.

The screen was  _ filled _ with text, plain white characters on the Slate's marbled blue background. Link touched the right side of the screen, and the text blinked and changed. Zelda stared at it wide-eyed.

"...It could take  _ years _ to translate this," she said quietly, reverently, and met Link's eyes.

He nodded. "Do you have any idea what it might be?" he asked.

Zelda hesitated, glancing uncertainly from the pictograms behind the Guidance Stone they had used to the others around the room. "...I'm not certain," she said. "It seems to have been included as part of a collection on the history of the Calamity, but the iconography is so  _ different _ from the others..."

Dragmire snorted. "You  _ really _ didn't listen to my aunts when they told you Hyrule's histories don't have all the answers," he said, making his way over to join them. He tilted his head back, looking up at the pictograms. "The Triforce is centered in this mural, and there are  _ three _ beasts here— three beasts for three Bearers."

Something curled uncomfortably in Zelda's stomach, and she shot him a glare instead. "Forgive me for not being convinced," she huffed. "Let's wait until I've translated this before you go and get all smug with me."

Dragmire flashed her a sharp grin at that, but didn't deign to rise to her bait. "I suppose we can wait, then. After all, you two came here for a Flame, didn't you? Let's worry about  _ that _ first."

"Right," Link said, and closed out of the text on the Slate. He opened it to the map again, waving Dragmire over to look. "So the elevator is  _ somewhere _ in this room— the map's showing it here, but I can't tell where it might be..."

Zelda peered over Link's shoulder at the map. The elevators weren't well-marked on the higher floors either, just a different-colored patch on the floor inside an alcove. She studied the plan of the third floor again, noting the elevator on the outside hall. Then she lowered her gaze further, directing it to the floor beneath them.

"—Oh!" she said, and tapped the floor with the toe of a boot. "We're already standing on it. Look down, there's a Sheikah eye!"

Link looked down, and his eyes widened. He snorted and stepped back, revealing more of the Eye under his boots.

"Sure enough," he said.

He knelt carefully, resting the Slate against the floor, and the Eye lit up beneath him. The floor rumbled softly, and Link stood— just as the platform they stood on began to move. He lurched forward. Dragmire reached out and caught him. His other arm shot out to grab Zelda by the shoulder, holding her steady as the platform sank. The ceiling shivered over them, then rumbled shut, plunging them into darkness.

They descended into light. The fourth floor was lit by the spectral blue sconces that had been present in the other two temples, casting their soft but constant light across the room. The space was smaller than either of the other two had been— though they landed at the edge of the room, it was hardly more than twenty feet from their end to the brazier on the other end of the space. The wall at that end was dominated by another pictogram, like the ones upstairs in style, of the Triforce with Nayru's crest at the center, and it seemed to shimmer in the light. The rest of the walls were covered too, and Zelda couldn't help staring as the elevator came to a halt.

She recognized some of them. The motif of the Hero was familiar, scrawled across one wall— the silhouette of a youth, his sword upraised. The pigments that outlined his form seemed to shimmer in the cool blue light. On the other side of the room was a woman she thought might be Hylia— eyes closed in benediction, a harp held gently in front of her body. There was no Flame mural, she noted. The wall where it should have been was dominated by the mural of Hylia. When she stepped off the platform her boots rang on tile, and she looked down— and gaped at the carefully tiled mural spreading itself across the floor, a wide circle marked with the symbols of the Triune at even intervals around the outer edge, with the Triforce set in the center. Something about it nagged at her memory, but she couldn't place it.

"...Wow," Link said quietly, stepping off to join her.

"It's beautiful," Dragmire agreed. He took a few more steps and knelt, running a hand thoughtfully over the pattern of the mural on the floor. "Look at this. Din, Farore, Nayru...and these look like music staves, between the crests......and I  _ know _ these symbols on the outer edge here— Link, do you think we could take a pictograph of this with the Slate?"

"Yeah, hang on," Link said, pulling the Slate out again. 

Dragmire sprang back to his feet and moved off the mural, and Zelda stepped aside too, looking down to study it again as Link snapped his pictures. There were twelve symbols around the outer edge of the circle, placed so one rested above the crest of each goddess and three sat between, marking even intervals around the outside of the circle.

Something clicked.

"...I think I've seen a carving like this before," she said quietly. "In the ruin under the old Temple of Time, up on the Great Plateau— there was a door there, with something like this carved on it, but we couldn't get it to budge no matter how we tried, so we couldn't get past it to explore further."

"That's...odd," Dragmire said. "So what's this doing  _ here _ , then?"

"I don't know," Zelda said.

Link turned off the Slate and dropped it back into his pouch, then reached up and unsheathed the Sword with a ring of steel.

"Alright," he said. "I'm going to activate the Flame now, and then...I guess it's back down to the trailhead lodge for the evening, and we'll make the trip back to Rito Village tomorrow?"

"I suppose so," Zelda said.

Link nodded at that and stepped forward, until he stood before the brazier, and raised the Sword skyward. The pictograms on the walls seemed almost to shiver in response, and the crest of Hylia lit up on the front of the brazier. The Flame leapt up in an instant, brilliantly blue and blinding, and Link thrust the Sword into it. He grit his teeth, seeming to strain against some force, holding himself steady as the fire danced around him, leaving him untouched.

There was a chime like a bell, ringing through Zelda's bones, and a burst of blue light that left her blinded for a moment.

When the glow faded, the Flame was gone as if it had never been.

And then, from behind them, someone began to applaud. The hairs on the back of Zelda's neck stood on end, and her palms felt damp inside her gloves.

“Oh, well  _ done _ , boy,” a voice said mockingly. It was neither particularly high nor deep, neither masculine nor feminine, lightly but unfamiliarly accented. And, somehow, it contained an undertone of steel, like a blade dragged slowly across a whetstone.

Zelda unslung her bow from her back and spun on her heel, nocking a broadhead in the same movement.

There was a stranger standing on the elevator platform, half cast in shadow.

They took a step forward, into the light, and Zelda’s grip on her bow tightened. The being’s size and features were Hylian, or nearly so— perhaps a little taller than she herself stood, with a heart-shaped face and upturned nose— but the eyes were black as voids and reflected no light at all, the skin pale like sun-bleached bone. The being’s thin lips twisted in a cruel smirk. They flicked aside the length of lank, ash-white hair blocking their right eye aside and took another step forward.

The light dimmed, casting bloodstained shadows across the ruddy darkness of their cloak. Their footsteps made no sound on the stone floor.

“And, of course, he has his spirit maiden with him— this  _ is _ the reunion of the era, isn’t it?” the being said. Their empty gaze locked with Zelda’s, and their upper lip curled. “How  _ charming _ . Though I must say, you’ve changed quite a bit haven’t you,  _ Hylia _ ?”

“And who are  _ you _ supposed to be?” Zelda snapped, and levelled her bow at them.

The being’s eyes widened. They brought one long-fingered hand up, covering their mouth in mock surprise. “Surely you  _ jest _ , Your Grace,” they said, pacing forward again. “Because  _ I _ certainly haven’t forgotten  _ you _ .”

Then they paused, and those black eyes darted up over Zelda’s shoulder. The thin lips quirked up again.

“...Though perhaps  _ you _ aren’t the one most in need of the reminder,” they purred. “So  _ this _ is where you vanished off to, young master. You’ve given me an  _ awful _ lot of trouble.”

“...You’re addressing  _ me _ ?” Dragmire asked from behind her, and Zelda jumped. His voice had gone high and tight.

The being sighed and brushed their hair out of their eyes again, stalking forward again. “There’s no need to play  _ naive _ , boy, these wretched goddess-dogs won’t lay a  _ finger _ on you,” they said.

“Hold it right there,” Zelda snapped, and drew. The being paused and gave her a once-over, looking almost bored.

“Oh  _ please _ ,” they said dryly. “Hylia, you of all people should know better than to think your pathetic mortal weapons could even  _ scratch _ my perfect form— but if you intend to act  _ this _ much the fool then I suppose we’re in need of a little  _ reintroduction _ after all.”

The being snapped their fingers and vanished in a shower of light. Zelda froze, holding her breath. Her arm shuddered under the strain of holding the bow at full draw.

Link yelped behind her, and Zelda spun again and loosed—

The being snatched the arrow out of the air, from their perch atop the brazier, and snapped the shaft in half.

“Weren’t you  _ listening _ ?” they snapped. “There is only  _ one _ weapon in this room that could harm me,  _ brat _ , and you aren’t wielding it.”

“What do you  _ want _ ?” Dragmire demanded. The scent of ozone hit the back of Zelda’s throat a moment later. She dropped her hand back to her quiver.

The being chuckled and vanished again, and Zelda whirled around, casting about for them. Their laughter seemed to come from every direction at once.

Dragmire gasped behind her, the sound cut off. Zelda spun back to face him.

The being had caught him from behind, one hand gripping his shoulder so tightly his armor creaked in protest. The other hand caressed his cheek almost tenderly, fingers shockingly white against his dark skin. Dragmire’s eyes were wide, and he met her gaze with a look of panic.

“I am the Demon Lord Ghirahim, once master of this land your people called the Surface, the right hand and favored blade of Demise, King of Demons,” they purred. “And I have come to reclaim my place at my master’s side.”

“—I think you have the wrong person,” Dragmire breathed. His face had gone ashen.

The hand stroking his cheek dropped lower. Ghirahim took hold of his chin and turned Dragmire’s face towards him. “You say that as if you don’t already know who you are,” he crooned. “Or are you so afraid to admit the truth around your little friends...Ganondorf?”

Zelda’s guts turned to ice. Dragmire’s gaze was still on her, his eyes wide with fear. She shot a sideways look at Link— who hadn’t sheathed the Sword. Whose eyes were locked on Ghirahim like a hunting dog on prey. Those eyes flicked towards her a moment, glowing Guardian-blue, and he nodded sharply.

“Dragmire,” Zelda said gently, “don’t move.”

Her bow came up before she even finished speaking, amber arrow on the string, and she loosed—

And shot clean through the space Ghirahim had stood the moment before; the demon vanished in another burst of light. Zelda could  _ feel _ it now, the surge of energy in the air. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She hurled herself aside, back towards Dragmire— as something slammed home into the tiles where she’d stood, shattering on impact in a burst of crimson light. Ghirahim dropped out of the air and onto the floor in a crouch, sharp teeth bared.

Link was on him in an instant. The Sword that Seals the Darkness rang like a choir— and slammed home against the edge of a black blade that hadn’t been there the moment before. Ghirahim shoved him back, and Link stumbled. Brought the Sword about to bear. Another ring of steel on steel. The air filled with it.

Zelda dropped numb fingers to her quiver. Link pushed Ghirahim back, step by step, but they were still too close. She couldn’t shoot.

Ghirahim vanished. Zelda cast about immediately, stringing an arrow, and braced.

The demon dropped out of the air behind Link. Before she could even shout, his sword came up—

_ “Stop!” _ Dragmire screamed behind her. The walls  _ shuddered _ with the force, and Zelda felt it roll through her like thunder.

Ghirahim froze in place, sword upraised.

She could hear the soft scuff of Dragmire’s leather boots on the floor behind her.  _ “Leave,” _ he snarled. The pulse of his power rumbled through the floor.  _ “ _ **_Now_ ** _.” _

Ghirahim’s upraised arm shuddered, as if to follow through with a blow he couldn’t let fall. He hissed in a sharp breath through bared teeth—

—And vanished in a burst of light.

The air went still.

Behind her, Dragmire made a soft, pained noise, and she turned around to watch him fall to his knees. Link darted past her to catch him, shored Dragmire up against his shoulder. Zelda hurried forward as well and caught his other side, supporting him between them.

“Are you two alright?” Link asked.

“I— fine, just shaken,” Zelda said.

Dragmire shook his head in response. His fraying braid slipped forward over his shoulder, loose locks falling freely. Link reached down and cradled his cheek, lifting his head as it began to loll forward on his neck.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Dragmire. Stay with me.”

“...’M here,” Dragmire rasped. “Listen...we  _ can’t _ stay here, he’ll be back—”

“I know, I know,” Link said. “Come on. Can you stand? I don’t…” His eyes flicked up to Zelda’s. “...We can’t carry you back down the mountain.”

Dragmire nodded, exhaling sharply, and shifted to get his feet under him. He rose slowly, and Zelda moved with him, pressing against his side to shore him up until she felt him take his own weight fully. She stepped back, then, but Link stayed close, pressed against Dragmire’s side.

Zelda sighed quietly and picked her bow back up off the floor.  _ Ganondorf _ , the demon had said. She glanced sideways at Dragmire, but he didn’t seem to be paying her any mind— his head was bowed, shoulders slumped, and Link held him like he might vanish too if he let go.

“...Link, may I see the Slate?” she asked. “There  _ has _ to be an exit down here somewhere.”

“Right, right,” Link said. He let go of Dragmire with one arm and fumbled the Slate from its case, holding it out for her.

Zelda took it from him and opened the map screen, switching the view back to single-floor. The only marks on the fourth floor, their current one, were the ones for the elevator, and she frowned. Surely they wouldn’t have to go all the way back up through the temple—? No. There it was.

“On the wall behind the elevator,” she said. She clicked out of the temple view, looking at the local map and frowning at the screen. “...Looks like it should let us out in Rospro Pass, almost back to the lodge.”

“Thank Hylia,” Link muttered. “A straight shot down to the bottom of the mountain. Dragmire, do you think you’re up for the ladder back down?”

Dragmire’s brow furrowed, and after a moment he nodded. “...I think so,” he managed quietly. “I’m just…. _ drained _ right now.”

“Well, you did chase off a demon,” Zelda said. She reached out carefully and took Dragmire’s free hand, leading him and Link back across the room and around the elevator platform.

She groped along the shadowed back wall, feeling around for the catch, until her hand pressed against a rounded protuberance sticking out from the rest of the wall. It gave slightly under her hand, and she pressed in until she heard the mechanism click. There was a soft sigh, and then a rumble, and the door opened. Bitingly cold wind blew in from the outside. She stifled a gasp and peered out the door.

The storm clouds, which had held the line north of Talonto Peak, had begun to roll down the slope towards them. Heavy flakes filled the air, falling in thick waves and half obscuring the terrain. The wind whipped up again, tugging at her. There were no other options. Zelda grit her teeth and stepped out into the storm, leading Link and Dragmire behind her.

The trek down the pass was more treacherous than the one up. Snow shifted constantly underfoot, pushed directly down the pass by the harsh winds, the guiding flags half obscured by sheets and gusts of snow and ice. She could hear Dragmire staggering behind her, and Link’s swearing as he fought to keep them upright. Part of her wanted to drop back, to support them both. Instinct kept her ahead, bow clenched tight in her fist, her other hand on her quiver when she didn’t need it for balance and eyes and ears alert to any disturbance.

Right now, she didn’t fancy their odds against a lone wolfos, much less a pack of lizalfos— or, goddess forbid, something worse descending the mountain under the cover of the storm.

At last she caught sight of the flag that marked the start of the path, a blue and gold banner whipping over the wooden platform and the descent to the lodge. She stumbled onto it, nearly tripping at the edge of the platform as the drifted snow gave way, and clung to the railing beside the ladder as the wind yanked at her.

“I’ll go down first, alright?” she shouted over the wind.

Link didn’t answer her in words, but he gave her a thumb’s up. Zelda nodded and turned, grabbing at the top of the ladder and beginning her descent. The wood shuddered and rattled at every step, at every gust of the wind, and was icy even through her gloves. Every step was an eternity, until she hit the drift at the bottom and lost her footing.

And then her grip. She dropped  _ hard _ into the snow and rolled, scrambling back upright and nocking an arrow.

Something felt wrong.

Felt  _ watched _ .

The ladder rattled, and she cast a quick glance upwards. Dragmire’s dark form was visible through the gusting snow, descending the ladder towards her at an uncertain rate. Stops and starts. His steps were longer than hers, though, and within a minute he hit the bottom of the ladder and stumbled up beside her.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“...There’s someone here,” Dragmire said quietly.

Zelda stilled. The ladder rattled again as Link began his descent.

“Where are they?” Zelda asked, just as quietly.

Dragmire exhaled through his teeth. “Near the lodge. The sapphire...I can feel the weight in the snow. They know we’re here.”

Zelda growled and raised her bow. “We know you’re there!” she shouted, screaming over the wind. “Come out, or I’ll shoot!”

There was no response. Dragmire stilled beside her, and she caught a flash of silver light before his hands clenched.

The snow beside the lodge  _ heaved _ . A shape sprang out over the drift, a flash of pale cloth, and Zelda drew—

And lowered her bow immediately. The shape moved more clearly into view, resolving into the form of a woman in the plain, cream-colored travelling kimono the Sheikah favored. She was small, shorter even than Link, and her face was tattooed in the traditional red the Sheikah of Kakariko favored. She was bareheaded even in the cold, even with her silver hair cropped close to the scalp. The woman moved quickly over the snow towards them, practically running on top of it.

“Impa!” Zelda shouted. She slung her bow hastily over her back and darted forward, and Impa caught her at the shoulders and pulled her into an embrace.

“Your Highness,” Impa replied, for Zelda’s ears only. “Thank Hylia you’re safe.”

She released Zelda and stepped back, looking back at the ladder just as Link reached the bottom. He and Dragmire looked almost out of place, two dark figures pressed close together against the snow, and Impa’s platinum brows furrowed sharply.

“You and I,” she said softly, “will need to talk.”

“Hey, Impa!” Link called. Zelda could hear the exhaustion in his voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I see you’re getting my charge in trouble, as usual,” Impa replied, and Link stumbled forward through the snow, Dragmire close behind him. 

Up close she could see how worn they both looked— Link stumbling over his feet, Dragmire gone grey with fatigue— and she shot a sidelong look at Impa, waiting for her to say something.

Impa, to her credit, kept quiet. She led the way back to the door of the lodge instead, moving lightly over the surface of the snow, and opened the door to usher them inside.

The inside of the lodge was washed in warm golden light from the fireplace, and Zelda shucked her coat in its warmth, closing her eyes a moment to luxuriate in it. Link and Dragmire stepped past her, and Zelda glanced between them and Impa as the pair made their way over to the bed. Link was limping, favoring his right leg— he must have done something to the ankle during the fighting— and Dragmire supported his weight as much as Link supported Dragmire’s.

She looked away again when they reached one of the beds, settling down beside the fire instead to unlace her boots near its warmth.

Impa settled down beside her a moment later, feeding another log into the flames. “I’m sure you know why I’m here, Princess,” she said quietly.

“My father sent you to retrieve me,” Zelda said, and sighed quietly. She slipped a boot off and set it to face the fireplace so it could dry out, then got to work on the other. “I’d been wondering when you would arrive.”

“Too late to stop you getting into trouble, it seems,” Impa replied. Her ruby eyes darted towards the bed, then back to Zelda’s face. “The message from my contact in Parapa said nothing about you and Link acquiring a Gerudo companion, and I was under the impression that there  _ were _ no men among them.”

Zelda winced. “...That’s King Dragmire,” she murmured back. Impa’s hands tightened on the kindling, which made an alarming creaking noise in her grip. “He... _ apparently _ the Gerudo high priestesses said his destiny and ours are linked, and he insisted on coming with us to the temple— Impa, we got attacked by a  _ demon _ and it seemed like it was after  _ him _ .”

Impa tossed the kindling into the fire, which sprang up around the new wood with a crackle. “That’s disturbing,” she said flatly, and cast another look at Link and Dragmire. Neither of them seemed to have noticed the conversation. “Why him, and not all three of you?”

Zelda exhaled, hissing between her teeth. “It called him its master,” she said. “And it referred to him as  _ Ganon _ .”

“And what do you think?” Impa asked. She shifted slightly, and Zelda got a glimpse of a knife— one of many she was sure Impa carried— hidden in a fold of her obi.

“I don’t know,” Zelda said, and shook her head slightly. “He doesn’t feel like the enemy.”

Impa nodded in return, and the hard lines around her eyes softened slightly. “...You should rest, Your Highness,” she said. “We’ll discuss this further tomorrow.”

Zelda nodded and stood— she didn’t want to argue. She swayed slightly, then caught her balance again, leaning against the chimney for support. The temple must have drained her, she thought, and she hadn’t noticed, running too high on adrenaline until just this moment. She cast a look at the bed, where Link and Dragmire were.

They’d shucked their coats and down trousers, she noted, leaving them and their boots in a heap on the floor beside the bed. Link was hardly visible, now— as far as she could tell, he’d lain down and Dragmire had curled in behind him, leaving just enough space for one between his broad back and the edge of the bed. His thick, fiery hair had gotten fully loose of its braid to splay across the mattress, and Zelda shifted the length of it aside as she sat down and shucked her own outer garments. Even both tunic and chemise felt chilly after the warmth of Rito down, but she ignored it, sliding in under the covers and settling against Dragmire’s back.

He was startlingly warm under her hands, warmer than Link usually was when they shared a bed, and she heaved a quiet sigh of relief and tucked herself closer, slinging an arm across his side. Her hand bumped up against Link’s shoulder, and she felt him stir and then settle again. Dragmire made a soft humming sound in response, but otherwise didn’t rouse, even when she picked herself up just enough to study his and Link’s faces.

Then she settled herself down again, pressing her face into the hollow between Dragmire’s shoulderblades. His clothing still smelled of amber and musk, and she noted, sleepily, that for all that he’d been engulfed in Malice, he certainly didn’t carry its stench.

And then her eyes fell closed, and she thought no more on the matter.


	12. Chapter 11: Malice Marked

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! Last chapter of the arc!  
> After this one, we're going back on hiatus for another 6-8 weeks; I'm expecting to have the arc done by early January '21 if I can keep my current pace. Next one's a long one, too-- at this point, my pacing suggests _8_ chapters--so get ready for that!

_He fell. Darkness wrapped him like a shroud, trailing slick tendrils over his face, his throat, clutching as he plummeted. Smoke and shadow wrapped around him, clutching like hands. A thousand voices screamed, crying his name. He brought his hands up over his ears to block them out._

_And fell._

_And fell._

_And struck the ground with his left hip first, and he knew he was dreaming but it_ hurt _, left him curled on himself and gasping as pain screamed its way up his side. Not fall-pain. Searing like a brand._

_There were hands on him, pulling him upright, and a voice. One voice. Low, richly accented, speaking his native tongue._

_“Open your eyes, boy. Yes, that’s it, this way. The shadows will crush you if you linger too long— yes,_ there _—”_

_And Ganondorf’s eyes were open, and the hands holding his shoulders were the King’s. The walls of the Colossus soared above him, bright glass murals shining in the fire-light. The King’s eyes shone too, those eyes he knew as keenly as the ones in his own reflection. His mouth was downturned, war-wearied features creased in deep concern._

_“I warned you to stay away,” the King said. “You bear His mark, now that His servants have found you and claimed you.”_

_“Why didn’t you tell me he would come?” Ganondorf asked. The words burned against his lips._

_“It would have done you no good. The Sword seeks out his Master, the place of a Blade is at its wielder’s side,” the King said._

_“I don’t want it,” Ganondorf said quietly, and cringed. The words sounded childish even to him._

_The King sighed and pulled them both to their feet. He was_ small _, Ganondorf thought, half a head shorter, but bodies were immaterial here, and the King was mightier. More substantial. The world rippled around him. The King’s hands were open, and the blue-violet focus rested in his palms. It rolled forward slightly, gleaming and opaque. The air shimmered, black scales curling in a rent in the world._

_He was waking up._

_“The Temple of Time,” the King said, and pressed the focus into his hands. “You have seen the Gate, and you have the last piece. Go with them and open the doors, Son of Din. You will know the task when you see it.”_

_The focus was_ real _, as real as the pain, solid and skin-warm in his hands. Ganondorf opened his mouth to ask another question, but the fanged shadow uncurled further, maw gaping wide enough to swallow the world, and—_

His eyes flew open and he sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. His heart pounded in his chest, blood roaring in his ears, and he looked around frantically. Dark wooden walls, wooden ceiling— his eyes fixed on the plaster chinked between the beams, trying to to place it. Light from a fire on his right—

Ah. The trailhead lodge. Their arrival was vague in his memory, blurred almost beyond recollection. The trek back down the mountain was the same, a shiftless whirl of snow and voices— the last clear thing he remembered was the Chamber of Nayru’s Flame.

The demon, the _Sword_ , poised to strike Link down where he stood.

The power that had burned through him when he’d commanded Ghirahim to stop, pouring from him like a flash flood in a slot canyon. The way it had left him scoured and empty after. He shook his head, trying to focus on the room around him.

Link, somehow, had slept through his waking, and Ganondorf let himself breathe a quiet sigh of relief. The Hylian was still curled on his side, his breathing slow and steady, blankets wrapped around him; more blanket than Ganondorf thought he’d had when they’d gone to sleep. He shifted, going to place a hand on his other side to sit more upright, and brushed broadcloth with his fingers— broadcloth and a warm body underneath. He shifted himself more carefully, peering over his shoulder to find Zelda on his other side.

As he watched, she cracked an eyelid open, hazy green peering out at him from beneath deep brown lashes. She grumbled something under her breath in protest and reached up after him, patting at his chest with a hand before taking hold of the front of his kurta and pulling gently, as if to tug him back down into the bed.

“Good morning to you, too,” he said.

There was a shuffle, and he jumped again, turning towards the rest of the room, his hand dropping automatically to where his scimitars would have rested on his hip. They weren’t there, of course, and he grit his teeth to keep the ozone in his mouth.

A woman was seated at the small table, curled up in the rickety wooden chair closest to the fire and watching them with uncanny intensity. Ganondorf eyed her back warily. He’d met Sheikah before, of course— there was a small population of expatriates living in Parapa— but most of them were of the dark-haired, dark-eyed sort, not silver-haired with eyes like rubies. This one’s hair was cropped short, like some of the Toruma wore theirs; less than a thumb’s length on the top of her head and shaved nearly to the scalp on the sides and back. It only enhanced the sharpness of her face. A Sheikah eye, tattooed in crimson ink, rested on her brow.

Next to the rest of her looks, her clothing was shockingly neutral: an unornamented kimono dyed beige, with red at the collar. A deep blue obi belted it at the waist, and with her knees tucked up under her he could see she wore deep-blue leggings, shins reinforced with leather beneath it. She was _tiny_ , he noticed, likely smaller than Link if she were standing.

“So, you _finally_ decided to rejoin the world of the living,” she said dryly.

“...And who are _you_ supposed to be?” he asked. He could taste the lightning on his tongue.

“My name is Impa,” the Sheikah said. “I serve the royal family of Hyrule.”

Her eyes were locked on him, intent and crimson, belying the simplicity of her statement. _Serve_ , he thought. It was common knowledge, the way Sheikah loyal to Hyrule _served_ the royal family.

If it hadn’t been so clearly _Yiga_ who had slain his mother, he would have assumed it had been Sheikah under the orders of the King of Hyrule. But if she had been _sent_ after them...

“... _Ah_ ,” he said. “You’re here to take Zelda back.”

Impa shrugged. “Those were the orders I was given by the King of Hyrule,” she said.

“She won’t,” Zelda muttered. She still had a grip on his kurta, Ganondorf noted belatedly, and she tugged at him again, pulling herself a little more upright and pressing her face against his shoulder. “‘M not gonna let her. We have places to be that _aren’t_ the Castle.”

“Yeah,” Link said blearily from his other side, and small hands fisted in the left sleeve of Ganondorf’s kurta as Link sat himself upright. His pointed chin settled against his shoulder, just barely digging in. “We’re supposed to be going to the Temple of Time.”

Impa’s brows creased sharply, furrowing the eye on her forehead. “The Temple— what for?”

“There was a mural in the last temple that matched something Zelda saw _there_ ,” Link said.

Zelda nodded, and sat herself more upright to rub the sleep from her eyes. “Not just that,” she said. “I was... _dreaming_ last night. I was standing in the temple ruins, in front of the statue of Hylia, and the sky was full of black clouds— horizon to horizon and rolling north across Hyrule, so big and so black they blotted out the sun— and there was a voice in my ear, telling me that if I did not seek ‘the temple of my ancestresses’, that demise would come upon Hyrule once more.”

The word _demise_ sent a shudder up Ganondorf’s spine, and he bit his lip and stayed quiet. Impa’s eyes flicked from her charge’s face up to his.

“Nothing to say, Desert King?” she asked.

Ganondorf squinted at her. “How can you _tell_?”

“You aren’t exactly subtle with it,” Impa replied. “I knew _before_ the Princess told me who you were.”

Ganondorf hummed and settled back, watching her intently. Impa held his gaze, her expression cool and detached, only the faintest quirk of her lips betraying irritation. He hissed a soft breath between his teeth.

“...I dreamed last night, as well,” he said. “Not of the temple itself, but I believe it’s where we need to go next.”

Impa quirked a brow. “We?”

“Well, we aren’t going _without_ him,” Link said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, and warmth coiled under Ganondorf’s breastbone. He turned his head just enough to press a kiss to Link’s brow.

Link leaned up to kiss him back, slinging an arm around Ganondorf’s shoulders, and he let himself be pulled down into it, dropping a hand to cradle Link’s jaw. Zelda grumbled something irritably on his other side and moved away— the bed creaked as she stood, but Link pulled him down into another kiss before he could turn to her.

There was another rustle behind him. “Link, where’d you put the Slate last night?” Zelda asked.

Link broke the kiss reluctantly, but shifted himself more into Ganondorf’s lap to address her. “It should be under my coat, I think? In the travel case.”

“Got it,” Zelda replied. Another rustle, and then the faint hum of the Slate powering up. “Did you want a healing elixir? You were limping last night.”

“I probably ought to,” Link said. “The gatekeeper got me pretty good.”

Ganondorf turned to look at Zelda just as the Slate flashed, and she tossed the elixir bottle to Link underhanded. He caught it easily, uncorked the cap, and took a swig, grimacing slightly.

“Dragmire?” Zelda said. Ganondorf tensed and met her gaze. She was still holding the Slate, but she’d folded her arms across her chest and eyed him up, her expression dubious. “You should have some of that elixir too. I don’t know _what_ that drop and the immersion in Malice did to you, even with your shield, but it _can’t_ have been good.”

Ganondorf frowned, trying to recall what had happened. His hands on the tile, slipping, Zelda’s crushing grip on his arms as she tried to pull him up. The Malice— blood-hot, slick and heavy on the side of his face and neck, the way it had wrapped around him as he fell. His cloak had hissed alarmingly, but—

It hadn’t burned him like Zelda had said it would. Not in the slightest. The rest of it was a blur, dark and pulsing and _warm_ , until burning gold had seared away the blackness and left him gasping on the floor. The only thing that had been left, then, was a bruised ache along his left side.

The wooden chair Impa was sitting in creaked softly as the Sheikah shifted her weight, jarring him back to the present. She was watching him intently, like a desert hawk locked on prey— as was Zelda.

“I...don’t believe I sustained any injuries,” Ganondorf said. “ _Maybe_ bruising on my ribs, but it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

_That_ wasn’t quite true. His side had burned when he’d woken, but that was quiet now, hardly an issue.

Link tugged gently at his kurta, drawing his attention, and when Ganondorf turned back towards him a warm, calloused hand cupped his face. “Hey,” he said gently. “Even if it doesn’t hurt, we should still probably take a look at it. Broken ribs aren’t any fun.”

“Trust me, I know,” Ganondorf said, unable to keep from grinning wryly. “You’re going to have to get out of my lap, darling. You’re sitting on my kurta.”

Link huffed at him, but slithered out of his lap anyway. The bed creaked as he slung his legs over the side and popped to his feet, bouncing lightly as if to test his ankle— which, by the way he was moving, was perfectly fine now. He held the elixir loosely by the neck of the bottle, cork in his other hand, ready to cap it again or hand it over.

There was no getting out of it now. Ganondorf sighed quietly and pulled his kurta off over his head, excruciatingly aware of the way Zelda and Impa watched him.

But it was neither of them who spoke, when the loose, undyed linen shirt he wore under his kurta came off as well. It was Link.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he said. “Dragmire, your ribs—”

Ganondorf looked down and froze.

Whorls of magenta and violet wrapped nearly the full expanse of his left side, vibrant against his skin as they spilled from just below his pectoral and across his ribs, down the line of his obliques. The lower end of them disappeared beneath the waistband of his sirwal, but he had a feeling that if he pulled them down to check they’d wrap across his iliac crest, down over the side of his hip. They almost seemed to pulse and move in the low, flickering firelight, but when he brushed his fingers over them experimentally, they were still under his hand. The skin beneath the marks was smooth and unbroken, not raised like he would have expected from scar tissue.

“What _is_ that?” Impa demanded.

“I— this wasn’t here before the temple,” Ganondorf said, trying to keep the fear out of his tone. He ran his hand over the marks again, pressing more firmly.

No pain. Nothing. Without looking, he couldn’t even tell where the marks _lay_ — like years-old tattoos on older vai— but he’d never considered putting himself under the needle before. He ran his hand over it again, this time digging in with his fingers—

Link grabbed his wrist before he could break the skin, stopping him in his tracks.

“They look like Malice burns,” Zelda said. When he looked up, she was fumbling with the Slate again, her face awash in blue light. “Hold on, there’s a pictogram of my grandfather’s burns in here _somewhere_ …”

She paused a few moments later, then turned the Slate to face him, displaying a pictogram of a Hylian man on the screen. He looked uncomfortably like Link, Ganondorf thought— small-framed, with a wiry build, and a thick shock of golden hair— but the focus of the image was clearly on the marks across the man’s skin. The Malice burns looked different on fair skin than they did on dark, but the patterns were similar, loose loops and whorls of magenta. The difference, as far as he could tell, was that the marks Zelda’s grandfather bore seemed more _purposeful_ , clustered along lines of heavy, white scar tissue, the skin beneath the markings raised.

“Not quite the same,” Ganondorf said, before he could stop himself. “His look like _burns_ , mine are just…”

He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Zelda frowned and reached out with the hand not holding the Slate, and Ganondorf gasped as her cool fingers trailed over his ribs. They paused at the scored skin where he’d dug his nails in, then travelled on down his side before she pulled away. The furrow between her brows had deepened.

“You’re right,” she said. “These aren’t burn scars— and there’s no way the Malice would have gotten between your skin and the chemise without damaging it.”

“The mark of the Calamity,” Impa said from behind her. Zelda stiffened, green eyes going wide. Ice trailed down Ganondorf’s spine.

“What?” Link said.

Impa’s chair groaned as she got to her feet, rising to her full height— though it wasn’t much, she stood half a head shorter than Link— and making her way towards the bed. Ganondorf tensed, tasting ozone and copper on the back of his tongue.

“Legend has it that, a long time ago, the Calamity once walked abroad in the skin of a Gerudo man,” Impa said. Her voice was quiet, controlled, and her eyes were like cut glass. “Perhaps it has chosen to come in that shape once again.”

Ganondorf curled his lip at her. “Hylian _propaganda_ ,” he snapped. “Your _masters_ used that filthy fucking lie to force my people into a millennium of slavery and _death_ , all for refusing to kneel to the Hylian crown.”

“Is that so, _Ganon_?” Impa snapped back.

“That’s not my name,” Ganondorf growled. He could feel the electricity crackling through his hair, starting at the roots and snapping down the strands.

“The princess tells me that’s what the _demon_ you three met in the temple called you,” Impa replied. She pushed past Link, who let her go, his face pale with shock.

“It’s _Ganondorf_ ,” he hissed between grit teeth.

Zelda dropped the Slate with a clatter. Ganondorf flinched from it, and Impa jolted, snapped out of her aggressive posture by the sound.

“...You knew,” Link said quietly, his voice breaking.

“Why didn’t you _say_ something?” Zelda asked. Her brows had furrowed again— but not in anger. In _concern_.

“I…” Ganondorf started. His stomach turned over, his throat gone tight. He clenched his fists in the fabric of his linen shirt, wanting to pull it back on. To cover the marks on his ribs. “I didn’t know about the _Calamity_ ,” he forced out at last. “But what did you want me to _say_ ? That, by our tradition, the King isn’t presented by his new name until he’s worn the Crown a month? That _your_ people have conflated my _traditional name_ with your apocalypse monster?” He swallowed, hard. “...That I was afraid you, _Zelda_ , would see it as a declaration of war?”

“... _Oh_ ,” Zelda said softly. She lowered her gaze, and, after a moment’s hesitation, stooped to retrieve the Slate, holding it in her hands like she was afraid it would shatter if she gripped too tightly.

There was a moment of strained silence. Ganondorf’s grip on his shirt tightened.

“Fuck it,” Link said decisively, shattering the silence like glass. He shoved the cork back into the top of the elixir bottle and snatched the Slate back, magicking it away. “Fuck _this_ . We’re sitting here getting assed up over whether or not Dragmire— _Ganondorf_ — our _friend_ is the Calamity when he hasn’t even _done_ anything— how stupid is _that_?”

“And what do _you_ suggest, _hero_ ?” Impa snapped back, rounding on him. “It’s _your_ duty to slay the Calamity—”

Ganondorf flinched at that, and Link stepped firmly in between him and Impa. His shoulders had gone tight, hands in fists. 

“He’s _not_ the Calamity, and I won’t let him be,” Link said. “We’re going to the Temple of Time, like Zelda said before all this shit came out. Whatever’s waiting there _will_ have the answers to _fix_ this. It _has_ to.”

Zelda took a deep breath and turned, standing shoulder to shoulder with Link. Impa’s eyes widened as they darted to her charge’s face. “Link’s right,” Zelda said. “That demon from the temple— Ghirahim— could be tracking us down right now, and if...if Ganondorf _is_ the Calamity, if we fight, that means Ghirahim could _take_ him, and we can’t take that risk.” She raised her chin slightly. “I’m not going back to the Castle, Impa. And we aren’t going to hurt a _friend_ over something like this.”

Something warm blossomed under Ganondorf’s sternum. The two of them stood like a wall, strong-shouldered and resolute. Hands clasped.

Impa sighed, and the tension in her shoulders went slack. She reached up, running a hand through the close-cropped hair on the top of her head, then lowered her hand back to her side and met Zelda’s gaze.

“Your Highness,” she said quietly. “I believe this course of action you’ve chosen may prove _incredibly_ foolhardy. But if this is the course you wish to take—”

“It is,” Zelda said.

“Then I will stand beside you every step of the way,” Impa said.

Zelda’s shoulders tensed, lines of muscle drawn tight. “If this is because you think I’m being stupid, or you’re going to be reporting back to my father the whole time—”

“This isn’t _about_ your father, or whether I think you’re being stupid,” Impa said, and her hands fisted in the sleeves of her kimono— a gesture Ganondorf recognized from Zelda herself. “Your father does not bear the Blood of Hylia, and at this point his wishes are immaterial. But I will _not_ abandon my charge, my divine service to the Blood of the Goddess, because I believe her actions are foolish, not while demons and the Yiga roam abroad and I may serve as a protector, as I was _meant_ to.”

Zelda exhaled shakily, and part of Ganondorf wanted to reach out and steady her. Link’s hand tightened, squeezing hers gently.

She seemed to take strength from that, drawing in a low breath before saying, “Then, as long as you don’t try to _stop_ us, you’re...more than welcome to accompany us.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Impa said quietly.

Zelda shook her head and let go of Link’s hand. “No, thank _you_ , for hearing us out.”

There was another pause, and Ganondorf shifted uncomfortably, then pulled his linen shirt back on over his head. There was a flurry of motion, and when he poked his head out of the opening at the neck the other three had turned to face him, wearing similar startled expressions.

“I hate to interrupt,” Ganondorf said, and pulled his hair out from under the shirt. He tugged it forward over his shoulder, combing through it with his fingers. “But if we’re going to make for the Temple of Time before Ghirahim catches up to us, we’re going to need a plan.”

“Right,” Zelda said, her tone grateful. “It’s a full two-day ride from here, by the shortest route— mostly retracing our path _here_ , since the site is located on the Great Plateau—”

“You’re _joking_ ,” Ganondorf said. His stomach dropped, hard.

“Nope,” Link said. He opened the Slate again, pulling up the map screen and panning out, then turned it towards Ganondorf and tapped a point far to the southeast of their position. “Here, on the north side of the Plateau.”

“And _that_ will make it a pain to access undetected,” Zelda said. She stooped and grabbed up one of her boots from its place near the fire, stuck a hand down to feel the inside and nodded. “The only access to the Plateau itself, by foot at least, is a single reconstructed stairway on the north face near the old gatepost ruins, and it’s held by a garrison from Katsuto at the behest of the crown. Which means we’ll need to find _some_ way to get past them—”

“There are other ways to access the Plateau, Your Highness,” Impa said. “We Sheikah know a route up the northeast face, adjoining the ruins of the eastern abbey.”

“ _Brilliant_ ,” Zelda said, her face lighting up again. “Impa, will you please—”

“Of course,” Impa said.

“Great!” Link said brightly. The bed jounced as he sat down beside Ganondorf and grabbed his own boots, not even bothering to check them for dampness before shoving his feet back inside. “So, I think our best course of action right _now_ is going to be to head back to Dronoc’s Pass and take the travel gate back to Rito Village. We’ll return our rentals, touch base with Medli and Komali if we can, and then get our horses from the stable and go.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Zelda said. “Dra— _Ganondorf_?”

“I have no objections,” Ganondorf said, resisting the urge to grit his teeth at her stumble. Somehow, that was _worse_ than her using the wrong name. He pulled his hair up instead, tying it up in a neat bun to distract himself.

Zelda nodded sharply. “If we can make it to the stable by midday, we should be able to make Tanagar Canyon before nightfall.”

“Then we should be on our way as quickly as possible,” Impa said. “The storm has gone quiet for now, and the sooner we reach the shrine the better off we will be.”

Ganondorf nodded his agreement and pulled on his kurta, then stooped to pick up his boots. He didn’t remember putting them under the bed the night before, but they must have gotten kicked under there at some point. The exteriors were still slightly damp from their trek, but it didn’t matter. The insides were still dry. He pulled them on, shrugged back into the Rito-down coat and fastened it closed, and buckled his sword-belt at his waist.

He already missed his cloak, he decided, and reached over the foot of the bed to grab his pack and pull it open, rummaging through for the black scarf he’d packed for the journey. He hadn’t expected it to get warm enough to really need it _instead_ of his cloak, but Nabooru had pressed it insistently into his hands while he’d packed, and he was more than grateful for it now. He folded the edge neatly and draped it over his head, tucking and folding the ends in securely, and pinned it in place with his ruby brooch.

Then he stood, closing his pack again and pulling it up onto his back, and straightened to look around the little cabin. Zelda was still fiddling with the fasteners on her coat. Link was perched on the edge of the bed, tightening the laces on his boots. Impa was already waiting by the door, her expression a study in neutrality. Her gaze met his a moment, then slid off, like water on glass. He had the distinct impression that she didn’t like him— but it was a different sort of dislike than Zelda had presented him with when they’d first met. Zelda had been up in his face, confrontational.

Impa, he thought, would sooner slip away from direct conflict and hit him later than face him head-on. He would have to keep an eye on her, then.

Link popped to his feet, slinging his pack up onto his back with practiced ease. “Are we all ready?” he asked.

“Of course,” Ganondorf said. Zelda nodded, straightening her own pack.

Impa opened the door and slipped out, her cream-colored kimono almost vanishing her against the new-fallen snow outside. The drifts were deeper than Ganondorf thought they had been even the night before, the tallest among them coming nearly to his hip. The sky was dark and heavy, especially to the north, clouds blotting out the sun’s ascent in the eastern sky. Ganondorf shivered as he emerged, already missing the extra shield of his cloak. His boots crunched in the layer of windblown snow covering the path.

They took the trail single-file at a fast walk, and not a word was spoken until they made the turn north again at the crossroads to Dronoc’s Pass, when the blue lights of the shrine began to peek over the ridge. It felt longer than it had two days before, and more uncomfortable for the quiet— without even the sound of birds or wildlife in the trees to break it. The oncoming storm hung oppressively in the air.

It was only when their boots came down on solid stone at the top of the ridge that Impa broke the silence.

“Link, you and I will travel back to Rito Village first,” she said. Her tone brooked no argument.

Link’s face tightened a little, but he acquiesced, joining her on the shrine’s travel gate and pulling out the Slate. He tapped something on the screen, and the two of them vanished in a burst of light, leaving Ganondorf and Zelda on their own.

“...So,” Zelda said, after a moment. “How long did you know? That you were _Ganondorf_ , that is.”

“Four weeks, now,” Ganondorf said, and prodded at a snowdrift with the toe of his boot. “Three days after...after my mother passed, the Rova initiated me and sent me into the holy places under the Temple of the Triune to find my path. They...after the death of a chieftain, her crown is ritually purified, and returned to its place in the vaults, where the new chieftain-to-be is not permitted until their initiation.” He hesitated, gathering his thoughts. “It’s...a proving, of sorts. The will of the goddesses guides the new chieftain to either the Earth Crown or the War Crown, and the one they find determines their future— chieftain or King.”

“And which one did _you_ find?” Zelda asked, her head tilting.

Ganondorf snorted. “Which one do you think? Only a King wears the War Crown.”

“Did you _know_ beforehand?” Her eyes were intent.

“That I would come out a King?”

“That you were a man.”

Ganondorf laughed outright at that one.

Zelda shot him an offended look. “I was serious,” she said. “Did you _know_ you were supposed to be a man before you became the king?”

“Does _anyone_ know what they’re meant to be?” Ganondorf asked.

Zelda sighed, and kicked at a snowdrift herself. “...I knew I was meant to destroy the Calamity before I knew I could be anything else,” she said. “My fate’s been laid out for me since the moment I was born.”

Ganondorf tilted his head thoughtfully. “That seems like a cruel burden to place on a young girl,” he said. “It seems almost unfair for me to say I didn’t know I would be King until the War Crown called out to me, by comparison. My mother raised me like any other daughter of the Gerudo.”

“I can’t say I’m not jealous,” Zelda said. She pulled her braid forward over her shoulder, playing with the end of it. “But...I also can’t say it seems like it’s been _easy_ to learn you had a destiny that was kept from you.”

“It certainly hasn’t been,” Ganondorf said. “...Why did you ask if I knew I was supposed to be a man?”

“Curiosity,” Zelda said. “I always felt that if I hadn’t _known_ what I was meant to be, I would have _felt_ it somehow. That I was different. And....I wanted to know if you felt the same way.”

Ganondorf shrugged at that. “Honestly? I don’t feel any different _now_ , as Ganondorf, than I did before the temple when I was still Dragmire, and still a girl.” He paused, thoughtfully, and studied the shape of the shrine. “...Maybe I fit a little better in my own skin now. The thought of being _Dragmire_ again chafes these days.”

“Then I won’t use it anymore,” Zelda said, and when he turned to look at her she met his gaze directly. The corner of her lips quirked up in a smile. “...Ganondorf.”

“Thank you,” he said.

The travel gate lit up blue, and a moment later emitted a burst of azure sparks that coalesced into Link’s shape, dropping him out of the air to land lightly on the gate.

“Where were you?” Zelda asked.

“Impa wanted to case, like, _all_ of Rito Village,” Link said, rolling his eyes. “Anyway, she wanted me to come back and get Zelda first, and then—” he hesitated a moment, meeting Ganondorf’s eyes. “...Gan? Is that alright?”

Ganondorf’s heart leapt.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s alright.”

Zelda snorted, hopping up onto the gate and hooking her arm through Link’s. “Sorry to break this up, lovebirds,” she said, and flashed Ganondorf a grin. “Mind if I steal your beau a minute?”

“As long as you return him in one piece,” Ganondorf said, grinning back.

Zelda’s smile widened, and Link laughed as he pulled the Slate from its case and tapped the screen again. The sound faded out as he and Zelda went up in streamers of blue light, leaving Ganondorf on his own in the pass. Flakes of white whirled down to take their place. Ganondorf tilted his face up to the heavens, watching the clouds roll down off the peaks. The silence was heavier with Zelda gone, and something about the weight of it in the air unnerved him.

It felt as if he were being watched.

The gate lit blue a moment later, and Ganondorf heaved a sigh of relief as Link dropped out of the air again, picking his way up to the shrine to join him. Link flashed him a smile and caught hold of the front of Ganondorf’s coat, pulling down as he lifted himself up onto his toes. Ganondorf chuckled and bent to kiss him, cupping the nape of Link’s neck to angle him more easily into it.

“How are you holding up?” Link asked gently.

“...I’m alright, I think,” Ganondorf said. “Zelda and I had a talk, and I _think_ we’re alright now.”

Link hummed. “Good to hear. Shame Impa doesn’t like you, though.”

“I could tell,” Ganondorf said, grimacing.

“No, I mean…” Link started, then paused, his brow furrowing. “...If she doesn’t like you, she’s not going to let you close to Zelda _again_ after that. I think she thinks—”

“What, that I’ll prove to be evil after all, and attempt to murder her charge?” Ganondorf said.

Link winced. “...Yeah, that’s about the shape of it.”

Ganondorf rolled his eyes. “Then I guess we’ll just have to prove her wrong, won’t we?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Link said, and pulled him down for a second kiss. Ganondorf let him, closing his eyes against it this time.

They’d scarcely broken the kiss when Ganondorf felt the air rush up around them, cool air and light, and his boots left the ground of the gate. The only thing solid against him was Link, holding tightly to his upper arms, their brows still resting together as the magic pulsed around them. He could feel the flow of it around him, _through_ him, and it was no less jarring than it had been the _first_ time they’d travelled from one shrine to another.

And then his boots touched down on another gate, and _much_ warmer air rushed in around him. Ganondorf opened his eyes, blinking in the sudden sunlight of Totori Village, and let go of Link to begin unbuttoning his coat against the springtime warmth. Link laughed and stole a third kiss, then released him, stepping off the shrine gate and heading towards the boardwalk again, where Zelda and Impa were waiting. The Sheikah’s ruby eyes narrowed again suspiciously, and Ganondorf shot her a dirty look in return.

“Gross,” Zelda said, and jabbed Link playfully in the arm as soon as he was in reach.

“Gross to you, too,” Link retorted, jabbing her back.

Impa rolled her eyes, folding her arms across her chest. “If the three of you have unfinished business here, handle it now. We don’t have any time to lose.”

“Right,” Zelda said. She slung her pack down off her shoulders and pulled her rented trousers out of it, handing them off to Link. “You two go return our gear. I’ll let Medli know what we found— and that she _absolutely_ shouldn’t go up there until we’re well out of the area.”

“Don’t want her running into a demon, after all,” Ganondorf said wryly.

Zelda nodded, then slipped past him, hurrying higher up the stairs towards the historians’ home. Link hooked an arm through Ganondorf’s as she did, pulling him close, and flashed him a reassuring smile.

“Come on, let’s go turn these things back in,” he said.

They made their way back down the staircases, circling the central pillar until the brown curtains of the Brazen Beak came back into view, and paused outside the door. Ganondorf pulled the trousers out of his pack, while Link shucked his coat and retrieved his cloak instead, fastening it loosely about his shoulders before they went inside.

The interior of the shop was brighter than it had been before— the eastern curtains had been rolled up, taking in the warmth of the sunlight. The Rito shopkeep was at the back of the room when they came in, going through the bolts of cloth on the shelves at the back, but they looked up at the sound of boots on the floor.

“Welcome back,” they said, taking a fluttery hop from the stool they were perched on and weaving their way back towards the front. “Was your trip to Hebra a success?”

“It was certainly something,” Ganondorf said, placing his trousers on the counter as the Rito made their way up behind it, flipping through their ledger.

“I’ve never seen anything like it, I’ll tell you that,” Link said, dropping his parka and trousers beside Ganondorf’s and setting Zelda’s next to them. “It’s a hell of a place.”

“That it is,” the Rito said. “Hope you three managed to stay out of that blizzard—” they glanced up, eyes widening. “—Where _is_ your third, by the way?”

“Saying goodbye to some friends,” Ganondorf said easily. Link shot him a sideways look. “Who knows when we’ll be this way again.”

The Rito bobbed their head in response, picking up the returned trousers and parka. “Indeed. Safe travels, to the lot of you.”

“Thanks,” Link said. “We’ll need it.”

The shopkeep turned, and Link reached down and took Ganondorf’s hand as they made their way back out of the shop into the sunlight.

The trek down the endless stairs felt like it took an eternity, but it was one Ganondorf didn’t mind. Link’s hand was warm in his, and the sunshine warmed him through to the core. It was refreshing, he thought, after Hebra’s chill, burning away the lingering ice and anxiety.

It was nearly enough to make him forget the marks on his left side.

Somehow, impossibly, both Impa and Zelda had beaten them to the bottom of the stairs. The pair of them stood under the arch at the foot of the stone pillar, heads bowed over a sheet of thin, yellowish paper and speaking together quietly. They both looked up when Ganondorf and Link reached the bottom, and while Zelda’s expression brightened, Impa’s scowl only darkened, drawing a deeper furrow between her silver brows.

“There you are,” Impa said. “The path to the stable is clear, but we should hurry.”

“Why?” Link asked. His grip on Ganondorf’s hand tightened.

“Bad news from Hyrule,” Zelda said. She snagged Link’s other arm as they reached the arch, pulling them down the trail towards the bridges.

“We just received a report from the Sheikah guardpost on Hyrule Ridge,” Impa said. “Evidently there was a skirmish between a group of our agents stationed near the Seres Scablands and a trio of Yiga footsoldiers. One of them was killed during the conflict, but the other two escaped, heading west towards the Tanagar Canyon. I have reason to suspect they intend to head us off before we can reenter Hyrulean territory.”

“We’re going to have to ride fast, then,” Link said.

“Not just that,” Impa said. “Once we’re on the road, we _cannot_ stop at any stables between here and the Great Plateau. If the Yiga intend to ambush us, they will know your descriptors, and they _will_ ask after you if we stop somewhere.”

“Rough camping,” Zelda said, her voice totally flat. “Delightful.”

“As long as it doesn’t rain, I think we should be alright,” Ganondorf said.

Zelda winced. “Don’t say that, or it _will_ ,” she said. “Impa, how far should we aim for today?”

“As far as we can,” Impa replied. “There are decent sites to pitch camp near the fork in the road, past the scablands heading east, and enough cover that the Yiga may miss us if we cover our tracks.”

They’d crossed the first two bridges leading back across Lake Totori by that point, and the bulk of the second island blocked the north wind cutting across the lake as they turned south, across the bridge to the third and final island. The horse-head of the stable was coming into view on the mainland, poking its ears just above the copse of trees around it, and Zelda picked up her pace, tugging at Link’s arm to hurry him along.

They crossed the final bridge a minute later, making the short trek up the slope and through the trees into the stable yard. The space was exactly as it had been the last time Ganondorf had stood there, and he paused, taking it all in. Zelda released Link’s arm and made a beeline for the stable’s main counter, with Impa hot on her tail, leaving him and Link to wait in the clearing.

“...Well, that’s not exactly reassuring,” Link said quietly.

“Is it possible to recognize a Yiga spy on the road?” Ganondorf asked. His stomach had begun tying itself in knots when Impa mentioned them, and he thumbed the hilts of his scimitars for reassurance.

“I...don’t know,” Link said. “There’s...a lot I don’t know about them. But I _think_ we should be okay with Impa along. Yiga are just...Sheikah who went bad, so a Sheikah can catch them at their tricks and counter them.”

Ganondorf grit his teeth. That didn’t _sound_ especially reassuring to him, particularly given Impa’s dislike of him, but it was all they had, really.

He set the thought aside as Zelda and Impa vanished around the corner of the stable, then emerged leading the horses behind them— his Zharu, Zelda’s Mutoh, Link’s Epona, and a surprisingly ordinary-looking dun mare with dappled haunches for Impa. Zelda handed him Zharu’s reins, and the next several minutes were spent checking over tack and tightening girth straps before he finally swung himself up into the saddle.

He was the last to do so, he noted, slower than the other three, who were already mounted.

“...Well, shall we?” he asked.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Link replied.

Ganondorf squeezed Zharu’s barrel gently in response, urging the horse into a walk, and the others wheeled about as they set off towards the east.


End file.
